The Mediator: Dawn
by beebee17
Summary: What's happened to all of the Mediator characters in two years after Twilight? Find out here! [JesseSuze]
1. Prologue and Chapter One

_Jesse and I went shopping the Sunday following the Winter Formal. He would, after all, need clothes and other things for his apartment. Like a litter box and cat food for Spike, whom Jesse loves almost as much as he loves me. Spike, who lived at the rectory with Father Dom, kept sniffing around for Jesse after the Winter Formal…Mr. Walden had seen him outside the classroom during history class._

_We bought the things he needed (some very nice clothes…I made sure they accentuated his supreme hotness), and we were walking around the mall-yes, I was in a mall, and I wasn't having a nervous breakdown…love does strange things to people-and I spotted the perfect Christmas present for Jesse: a book about the history of medicine. Very romantic, yes, but what was I supposed to do-buy him a copy of the book on _Kama Sutra? _Or maybe _Dating For Dummies? _Or _The Idiots' Guide to Dating?

_Besides, he was to start his college education in January for the spring semester. The book might have been useful for him. Of course, any book would be useful for him, even a dumb romance novel like _Bridges of Madison County. _Of course, after I thought about the book some more - and told CeeCee about him reading it - I reconsidered why he thought it was so funny. CeeCee went online and found this review that went something like: _If you've ever experienced the one true love of your life, a love that for some reason could never be, you will understand why readers all over the world were so moved by this small, unknown first novel that they made it a publishing phenomenon and #1 bestseller.

_Oh my God. He loved me, even as he was reading that stupid book! Except, of course, our love could be, and it was._

_Now back to the original topic…_

_May I take this time to point out that Christmas was only two weeks away? I didn't think I'd be able to come to the mall again by myself - I only went with Jesse to be his fashion guide…and to make sure no girls would hit on him - and be able to live through the experience of Christmastime shopping and live to tell about it without drinking about five cups of herbal tea. In fact, I was sure I wouldn't be able to survive the experience._

_So I had to distract Jesse from the bookstore, a difficult task, seeing as how he loves books so much-well, you can't buy people's Christmas presents with them right there with you because that's one of the lamest things to do._

_Only, of course, he wanted to go to the bookstore. Just my luck. But he went over to the history section, and when he got really engrossed in a book about the Vietnam War, I slunk over to the section where the medical history book was, and I bought it, then promptly stuck it in a bag of stuff I'd bought for my other family members-a bottle of Chance by Chanel for my mom (and a matching bottle for CeeCee, myself and Gina), a grill kit for Andy, and a Goofy bobble-head for Adam's car, and a miniature telescope for David. "_Querida," _Jesse said, "Where are you?"_

"_I'm right here," I called. _

"_Ready to go home? We won't make it to your house in time for dinner, and I'd hate t make a bad impression on your stepfather…"_

_He was right; we had to go. _

"_Ready when you are," I said, tip-toeing to kiss him._

_I looked down-and in his arms, he was holding the book I'd just bought for him as his Christmas present._

_I scowled. Now what was I supposed to buy him? _

"Querida, _what's wrong?"_

"_Nothing."_

_Then I started to laugh hysterically to the point where I started crying. Jesse touched my shoulder and asked me what was wrong. I told him it was nothing, and then I pulled the book out from the bag of Christmas gifts. _

_Then he started to laugh. "I bought it for you." I said. _

"_We can read it together, then."_

"_Um…um…" that was all I was capable of saying, but he knew what I'd meant-I didn't want to read the book because I thought it would be boring._

"_I'm sure your brother David will enjoy it," Jesse said. "I know you think my books are boring. You only like those ones by Stephen King. And _Bridges of Madison County." _I burst out laughing again. People were staring at us now, but I didn't really care because I was just so happy. _

"_Come on, let's leave," I said._

_Jesse kissed me, right there in the middle of the mall, and I didn't care if anyone around us saw it. I didn't care that we were late for dinner. _

_And I think Andy and my mom had expected it, but, surprisingly, they-nor the rest of my family - did anything to embarrass me at dinner that night. _

* * *

**Chapter One**

I'd had this poor hysterical girl show up in my room-I still lived with Mom and Andy, sadly, but that meant that I wouldn't have to work so much during the school year, leaving free time form term papers and Jesse-at two in the morning on the day of my final exam. _Great. I'm going to have put on concealer to get rid of the dark circles under my eyes,_ I thought groggily.

"Please, please help, they told me to see you," I heard a female voice say. I, in my still-sleepy daze thought it was kind of funny that all the ghosts say "they told me to see a mediator." I mean, who where _they?_

"What do you want?" I said, rolling over to turn on a lamp.

"My body. It's going to be dissected in the science lab! By this guy named Jesse!" she said.

Oh my God. My boyfriend is going to see another girl's naked body before mine, because she's dead, and he has to dissect her body for school. Jesse's only been in college for two years, but he takes four "cram semesters," meaning that he will graduate pre-med in two years instead of four, and he intends to do the same for medical school.

He is apparently in a big rush to become a doctor, and God only knows why. Secretly, I think he's afraid he'll die--again--and not be able to become a doctor--for the second time.

Life is so not fair. Why should he consent to see a girl's naked body for school when he won't even feel me up? WHY?

Not fair, not fair, not FAIR.

_He will see another girl's naked body. She is a ghost. What if they fall in love, and he forgets about me? _I thought. Hey, I know Jesse would never do such a thing to me, but it was 2 am.

She died suddenly, and her parents hadn't had the money to have her buried or cremated, so they donated her body to scientific research. Scientific research that my boyfriend will have to complete in order to pass his final exam for this semester. It might be one thing if he had to dissect a man's body. Or maybe a nice octogenarian lady who'd died while eating a Twinkie, and this said man or old lady hadn't become a ghost, demanding to know why, exactly, was his/her body going to be dissected like a frog in a tenth-grade science lab.

Oh no. This girl, Adeline McClellan, had become a ghost for exactly that reason: she didn't want her body to be sliced up like salami, and then tossed into an incinerator, and I, for one, didn't blame her a bit-even if I did have my own selfish reasons. She was a smarter, more down-to-earth version of Kelly Prescott. She would have gone on to have a nice, wonderful life with a boyfriend who wasn't afraid to go past second base, a mother who didn't drag out the family photo albums every time the said boyfriend came over for dinner-even the ones he'd already seen a thousand and one times-and she'd most likely find a college major she knew for sure she'd be successful at making a career with-all so unlike me.

But, of course, she had to die. It always seems to happen that way, which makes me thankful that there's always a check for every good thing in my life.

For example, I was extremely happy that my family liked Jesse very well, but Brad, at the Sunday dinner Andy had invited to the night of the Winter Carnival in my junior year of high school, decided to look me straight in the eye with and evil grin on his face, and said, "Hey, Suze, isn't he the guy you let sneak into your room?" Right in front of everyone in who was present at that gathering-Mom, Andy, Jesse, David, Jake, and myself.

I had shot him a look that spelled death. How dare he, what with his hot-n-frothy fun with Kelly Prescott at his private Oktoberfest not long before that?

I so wanted to kill Brad for that…and then myself to save myself the trouble of explaining that to my mother, who was VERY excited about the fact that a boy liked me, and I liked this said boy, and he was smart, and handsome, and how I was no longer a late-bloomer, blah-blah-blah.

Fortunately, Mom, still very happy for me, refused to believe that Jesse, such a wonderful young man do such a thing, and she came to my defense quickly-and grounded Brad for two weeks. Notice how she didn't say that _I_ wouldn't do such a thing.

But then, Jesse turned all red and wouldn't say what he thought on the matter after I'd asked him.

_A check for every balance. _

"I know this is for the good of science, but I don't want my body desecrated in such a manner! I know my parents don't have a lot of money, but I could have been given a state burial for free. The only way I'd want this to happen is if I were an organ donor, which I forgot to have that printed on my driver's license…" she rambled on.

I was tired. I understood her dilemma--probably better than she thought I did--but I really wanted some sleep.

"I understand. I'll talk to this Jesse about it. Maybe he will ask his professor for an alternate assignment," I yawned.

"But it's required."

"I'll talk to him, I promise. Bye, Adeline," I said.

Boy would I talk to him! But the question is, how would I do it? I couldn't be all like "Sorry, Jesse, you've been working hard, but I'm afraid you'll have to fail your class."

I yawned, rolled over, and went back to sleep.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

I had first woke up to the sound of a girl screaming at the top of her lungs, and then again, five hours later by the sound of my stepbrother Brad yelling that I had five minutes until breakfast started, and that it was officially my week to do the dishes, not something I wanted to be reminded of first-thing in the morning, thanks, Brad.

I groaned and rolled out of bed, pulling on some kind of clothes--I didn't exactly know or care what. I didn't have to work at looking good right now because Jesse wouldn't come over for another few hours. I combed my hair and went downstairs to eat the breakfast I was already five minutes late for.

"Suze," David said as soon as I sat down. His voice, which had gotten pretty deep lately, sounded kind of squeaky, which it did whenever he referred to Jesse (oh man, I know the feeling…only David's voice doesn't get squeaky for the same reason mine does). He had also managed to gain some weight, and his freckles were going away. He was also taller than me now. I was surprised that Shannon, his girlfriend of two years, hadn't started beating other girls away with a baseball bat. "When is Jesse coming over to pick you up? Because if you guys have time before the movie starts, I was wondering if I could show him my model of the galaxy on my computer…" The geek-ness hadn't gone anywhere, though.

I sighed. David's discussion of the wonders of the universe would probably make us late for the movie. "I don't care. You'll have to ask him if he'd like to see it," I said. David really needs a hobby.

"Suze, pass the pancakes," Brad demanded…with his mouth full of some chewed-up food.

"Brad, in most of civilization, it is considered rude to speak with your mouth full of food. It is also a choking hazard," Andy said to his middle son. Andy was still mad at Brad because Brad had managed to fail the twelfth grade, and had needed to repeat the entire year. Brad didn't have much hope for going to college. It seemed Andy was always mad at Brad for something.

I shot Brad a mean look. "Here," I said. He could have asked in a nicer manner. Especially considering the fact that it was supposed to be his turn to clear the table-but I had switched with him with his promise that he wouldn't disturb my phone conversations and movie nights with Jesse.

For instance, last time Jesse was over, Brad looked at Jesse and said, "You're that gang-banger from the Valley Jake was talking about. Why were you sneaking into my sister's room all those nights?"

…And when Jesse replied by asking, "What is a gang-banger?" Brad had nearly died laughing.

"Don't listen to him, Jesse, he wears tights and rolls around on the floor with other guys," I'd said. Not that Jesse knew what I was implying about my stepbrother, if you know what I mean.

Brad called me a bad name and attempted to storm from the room. I say that Brad attempted to storm from the room because Jesse followed him, and said, "Kindly do not insult your sister in such a manner."

"What do you care?" Brad had snapped, and stormed up the stairs to his room without waiting for an answer.

I ate my breakfast. David had proceeded to talk about his newest philosophy he'd come up with after reading some article in a science magazine. After David finished his lecture, Mom started asking me about how school was going. I told her that school was going well, that my professor in design class had really, really liked one of my designs for a purse, and had submitted it to a show. The winner of the contest would be given the chance to create his or her own brand of clothing and thus make a clothing line, which was to be picked up by Macy's and a few other department stores, and even a few boutiques. Brad snorted. "What?" I said. "You want a purse?" A purse would go great with his purple and white wrestling tights.

"Fashion design is a stupid major," he said matter-of-factly. Fashion design had been CeeCee's idea, and the motion had been seconded by Gina, who was a fashion slave. CeeCee had mentioned the idea when we had gotten our aptitude test scores back. She said that I liked clothes a lot, and why not do something involving what I loved, since I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do? And Gina had just mentioned to me when she'd come out to Carmel for a summertime visit that she'd love to wear something, and be all like, "Oh, this? My best friend designed this shirt for me. Do you like it?" Gina had also mentioned, by the way, that if I were not her best friend, she would do whatever she could to steal Jesse from me.

Comforting.

Not.

"At least I'm in college," I said.

"At least Suze is seeking the opportunity to do something productive with her life," Jake said. He was mad at Brad because Brad had wrecked his Camaro, which Jake had finally procured enough money for. It had been a fortune to repair.

Mom also asked me if I'd considered getting an apartment or a dorm room. I told her that I'd been too busy studying to look into it. I didn't tell her that I was kind of nervous about moving out on my own. She also looked as if she wanted to ask more, but she knew better than to ask about me and Jesse in front of Brad.

I finished my food and started to clear the table. Mom followed me to the kitchen. "What movie are you and Jesse seeing tonight?"

"I forgot," I said. I had forgotten what movie Jesse and I were going to see, what with all the excitement-of the wrong variety--I'd had at two in the morning. Had I been woken up at two in the morning by Jesse, I would not have forgotten. If anything, that would have been all I was capable of thinking about. But Jesse would never wake me up at two in the morning for anything, let alone, you know…

"Love does that to you," she said. "How did you and Jesse meet, anyway?"

I had been waiting for her to ask. Jesse and I had made up a story--okay, I made up the story and told Jesse to use it--that we'd tell. We simply met one day when I'd first moved to Carmel. It was the truth--but it wasn't as simple as just having met him on the street somewhere by chance; it involved something very complex that my mother and the rest of my family would never be able to comprehend--my special ability to converse with the dead on a regular basis. And then the nifty little fact that Jesse had once been among those dead.

Yeah, I expected my mom to believe that. Not. I didn't expect her to believe that any more than I expected Jesse and I to get past second base before my fiftieth birthday.

"Yeah." I sighed. "It does. Jesse and I met when I first got here."

"I hope you don't mind me asking then, why did it take you so long to tell me about him?"

How was I supposed to answer that?

"Well, it took him a while to be able to tell me how he felt," I said, and that was the truth, too.

"I'm glad you've found someone, Susie," she said, and she hugged me.

After I finished cleaning up, I went to my room and drew a sketch of my latest assignment for design class--an entire ensemble; pants or a skirt, a shirt, a hat, shoes, and any other accessories. For my exam, I would have to actually make the clothes and model them on a mannequin, and I wasn't sure if was actually ready for that, but my exam was only a week away. I'd made the shirt and the hat, but not the pants or the jacket I was going to make as well. This fashion designing stuff is hard, but I had a chance at making my own clothing brand and line, if my purse won in the contest my professor had entered it into.

I worried the entire time about how I was going to tell Jesse about Adeline. I was hoping that maybe she would find him and tell him not to dissect her body, because I seriously didn't want to be the one to tell him.

I cleaned up my cloth samples--the last thing I needed was for one of my stepbrothers to ruin them for me--and got ready for my date with Jesse.


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

I'd kept forgetting on all my dates with Jesse -- yeah, _dates_; he finally got the hang of it -- that he probably wouldn't care how I looked, I mean, he has seen me with bloody hands, poison oak-y hands, in a one-piece bathing suit, in my pajamas, covered in mud, bloodied, bruised, but when I walked down the stairs to say hello to him, he said, "You look nice tonight, Susannah."

I smiled up at him. He looked nice too--in a pair of faded jeans and a black shirt. "Thanks." I wanted to tip-toe up to kiss him, but Brad was right there in the living room, and I didn't want any rude comments to be made on Brad's behalf. I knew Jesse wouldn't say anything rude. I mean, I couldn't exactly sucker-punch Brad with my mom anywhere nearby, which she was. She is always nearby when she thinks Jesse is anywhere around. She really likes him. I think she's planning our wedding, naming our kids, and designing our house. I swear. He hasn't even uttered the M word. Damn it. I know I told him that I didn't care about marriage or kids, there is something I do care about that I can only get from him if I marry him. I think you know what that is. I mean, I don't want to be rude or anything, but, um, I am a girl. I have hormones. I think you know what I mean.

Not that he would be so bold to ask for my hand in marriage. I mean, he likes Andy and all, but I imagine he'd want to ask Andy for his blessings, and of course, he's probably too shy to ask.

I was glad, however, that my efforts to look my best had paid off. I mean, I always need to look good, but especially for him. I wore my favorite dark-rinse lowrider jeans and my favorite lavender cashmere sweater, the one Mom bought for me for my nineteenth birthday, saying that she thought the lavender would bring out the green in my eyes -- because even though it was May, and really warm outside, movie theaters are really, really, really cold. I know because that's where Jesse likes to spend his time when he isn't in class or studying. I've tried telling him about the miracle of DVD players and Blockbuster, but he says movies are better in theaters.

Whatever. As long as he's spending that time with me and not with Adeline McClellan's ghost - or cadaver --I don't care.

Adeline McClellan. Oh God. How was I going to deal with that situation? It's not like she wanted me to track down her murderer (well, she didn't have one) or steal one of her possessions from one of her benefactors and give it to the person who deserved it more -- all she wanted me to do was tell my boyfriend not to dissect her body. Why was I having such a hard time with that? Oh yeah, that's because telling my boyfriend not to dissect her body was telling him to fail his semester exam, and telling him that all the hard work he'd been doing for the past two years was all for nothing over a dead woman.

I was mulling over all this as Jesse escorted me to his car. Yes, he finally got one. A Honda Civic. He opened the door for me, as was his custom. He asked my why I was so quiet, and if I was thinking about something. I told him I was thinking, but I didn't really know what I was thinking about. He told me that I just seemed like something was bothering me, and that if I wanted to, I could tell him.

"It's nothing, Jesse, really," I said.

"Not nothing. Has he called again?" Jesse said, referring to Paul, who was away at Harvard, studying to be a lawyer. Paul had called me several times over the past two years, suggesting that maybe he and I should go out for coffee some time, even though I keep explaining to him that I am fully taken for once in my life, and I don't want to get coffee with him next time he's in town. Or ever, really, because I don't like coffee. Or Paul. While Paul is my friend, and Jesse's friend as well, ironically, I don't think that Jesse would take it lightly if I wanted to go meet Paul for cappuccinos and a friendly chat. Jesse trusts me and all, but I had a pretty sinking feeling that Jesse and Paul would end up fighting over me the way some four-year-old boys I'd once babysat fought over toys.

"It's _mine!_ My mommy bought it for me!" the first boy had said.

"Yeah, but, can't I just _borrow _it? Please, can I see it for five minutes?" the second boy had said.

"_NO! IT'S MINE, AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT!" _roared the first boy.

"_I HATE YOU!" _the other boy said. And then the boys had wound up hitting each other until I pulled them apart.

Only with Jesse and Paul, it could get really ugly, and instead of time-out, one of them would wind up hurt or in jail. Or both. That I did not need.

"No, he hasn't called," I told Jesse.

"You know you can tell me," he said as he stopped at a stop sign.

"I know, but I want to think some more first," I said.

The truth was, I had no idea how I was going to tell him. I would wait until the movie was over, when maybe I'd have thought about it enough to ask him what he'd do in a "hypothetical" situation.

Then I'd break the news to him that my hypothetical situation was indeed a real one, and that we needed to talk to Adeline to see if we could change her mind.

Or we could always ask for another body for him to dissect for school. That would solve my problem, but it wouldn't solve Adeline's problem, so I'd have her to deal with.

As a mediator, I've had to make many sacrifices, but this wouldn't be my sacrifice, it'd be Jesse's, and it wasn't fair to him, not after all the work he'd done.


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

I snuggled up against Jesse during the movie. I wasn't cold or anything, but it was the romantic sort of thing to do. And the heat coming from his body assured me that the past two years hasn't been a dream. It would have been a good dream, but I would have been VERY disappointed when I woke up. Besides, you can't feel other people's body heat in dreams, can you? I sniffed Jesse's neck. He smelled like soap and something good, but I don't know what it was. What was it David had once said…something about a person's scent that the brain recognizes or something like that? Pheromones. That was it. He'd said it one day after I'd said to Brad when he'd arrived home from his wrestling practice, "For the love of God, take a shower, Brad!"

And David had said something about pheromones and the part of the nose that scientist think may be responsible for picking up the molecular bits of scent and sending them to the brain, telling it what to do…and how a baby knows its mother and father by scent, and how women who live together tend to menstruate at the same time. Seriously. He was so wrapped up in his speech that he said the word "menstruate" without even blushing. Jeez. I can't even say "period" or "PMS" without turning red and getting really interested in the floor.

I put my head on Jesse's chest, my head rising and falling with each of his breaths.

Despite the noise from the movie, I was able to count his heartbeats. I busied myself by trying to match my heartbeat with his.

_Thump-thump…thump-thump…_

I didn't get much success, but I liked lying there with him beneath me, me feeling his hard chest beneath the softness of mine, smelling his soap, feeling him breathe.

"I like this movie," Jesse said, referring to _The Godfather -- _and disturbing the heartbeats I was counting, but I could hear and feel his voice reverberate in his chest as he spoke.

Despite the romantic feelings I was experiencing, I groaned. "I know you do," I said. Why couldn't we have gone to the movies? _The Godfather _wasn't in the movie theater, thank God.

He chuckled. "You pick the next one," he said. "Besides, Susannah, this is almost over. Can you stand another fifteen minutes?"

"I guess." I yawned.

Because David had had to tell Jesse all about his model of the universe on his computer, and how he thought the universe would shrink in the next 100 billion years or so, we'd been too late getting to the movie theater to see the movie from the beginning, and Jesse, being the movie-lover he is, has a thing against not being able to see a movie in its entirety, so we had to go to his place to watch movies or do something else instead. Only not the something else I wanted to do. Well, at least not right away. He wasn't dumb. He knew I wanted to make out. He probably knew I wouldn't get to pick a movie because it would be too late to watch another movie by the time we were finished. Oh well. The kissing was the important part, right?

After the movie was over and the credits were rolling up the screen, he stopped the movie and, he pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head. "What do you want to watch, _querida_?"

Only instead of replying, I leaned up and kissed him. He kissed me back and our kisses eventually deepened into French kisses, and his hands caressed my back. I was hoping things would go further than before, but I wasn't going to get my hopes up too high. I mean, if he can go for two years with just kissing me and occasionally feeling me up, I guess I can wait, too. Even though he was born in 1830, you can't tell me _that_ hasn't crossed his mind from time to time. He is ostensibly male. And I once read in _Cosmo _that guys are said to think about _it_ every six seconds or so.

Jesse's six seconds or so don't seem to occur whenever I'm around, though.

Maybe he is an exception to that rule, after all. After a while of kissing -- that had, by the way heated up to getting to second base, to my never-ending happiness -- Jesse decided that it was time for another movie, which I got to pick, so I picked a movie called _Donnie Darko _because it had some stuff about time travel in it, and anything to do with funerals, time travel, or ghosts had become a private joke between Jesse and me…even if Donnie Darko ended up killing himself at the end of the movie, by going back in time to the night he was supposed to be crushed by an airplane engine when it crashed into his house and landed in his room, so his girlfriend could live -- even if that meant she'd never meet him. (1)

Although the movie was excellent - I had seen it a few times before -- I fell asleep around the middle of it, and I didn't wake up until the next morning, when Jesse nudged me awake. I first realized that I was in his bed. With him right next to me, and I hadn't even made sure this was okay with Mom and Andy.

"Good morning, Susannah. Don't worry, I called your mother last night to tell her that you were asleep and that you'd tried to slap me when I moved you into a more comfortable position. She isn't angry," he said as if sensing my thoughts. He has an uncanny ability to do that…and, if I'm ever thinking about him, he knows. It's kind of like when I used to think about him, and he'd swear that I'd called him, only he just knows that I'm thinking about him. It's really weird.

"Thank you, Jesse," I said, moving closer to him, and putting my head on his chest again.

I looked at the clock. It was twelve-thirty. I must have really been tired. This would never fly - my spending the night at Jesse's, I mean -- I knew, if my mom and Andy hadn't trusted Jesse so much. But when they saw how old-fashioned Jesse was -- what with being the only guy his age who is actually capable of chewing with his mouth closed, and he actually takes time to enjoy his food, not to mention the fact that his pants are always situated on his waist, not mid-way down his thighs, and he opens doors for my mom and me, and he stands up when a woman stands up, and he makes super-polite conversation with her and Andy when he comes over for dinner -- they were pretty much willing to let me go see him whenever I wanted to.

Frankly, if my mother were not nearly twice his age -- so far as she knew, anyway -- and married, I think she would have been trying to steal Jesse from me, like nearly every other warm-blooded, straight woman who'd come in contact with Jesse in the past two years had tried to do. They usually backed away, however, if I happened to be anywhere nearby, because there must be something they see in me that tells them to get the hell away from my boyfriend.

He stroked my hair. "Susannah, I love you."

He'd finally said it. I mean, we knew that we loved each other, but we'd never said it.

Now he had.

"I love you, too, Jesse," I said, and I kissed him.

"Jesse, what was your family like? I mean, I know you don't really like to talk about them much, because it's really sad what happened, but what were they like? I mean, you've never told me," I said.

"Well, my father's name was Joseph, and my mother's name was Teresa. My sisters were Marta, Mercedes, Josefina, Catherine, and…Susannah." He smiled, and he had a far-away look in his eyes. "Marta was sixteen, Mercedes was fifteen, Josefina was twelve, Catherine was eight, and Susannah was six. You remind me of her sometimes. She always thought she was invincible, always thought that she was going to do as she pleased no matter what anyone said, and she was very cute. She would climb trees and ride horses the way men did - not sitting side-saddle, as women were to - but she was very afraid of thunder storms. She always wanted me to read her bedtime stories." Tears were forming in my eyes. It was just so sweet how he had loved his youngest sister. The whole time he had been mentally comparing me to someone else, he hadn't been comparing me to Maria de Silva Diego, but to his little sister that he loved very much and read bedtime stories to and the little sister he had protected from the occasional thunder storm. All in all, I suppose that him having thought of me at first as a little sister wasn't as bad as him having compared me to the bitch who'd ordered the hit on him once.

"She begged me not to go that day…" he trailed off, but I knew what he'd meant: Susannah, his sister, not me, had begged him not to go marry Maria -- she hadn't known that he wasn't going to marry her, that he had been going to break off their engagement.

But still, she hadn't wanted him to go. I suppose she thought that something bad would happen, and of course, something did. First, Jesse had been murdered in his sleep by Felix Diego, then later "Jesse" -- really Diego -- had been burned to a crisp in the barn I had accidentally set on fire.

"What happened to them?" I asked. Maybe I shouldn't have; I should have just let him talk, but I wanted to know what happened to them, especially his youngest sister.

"My sisters all married and had children, as they were expected to. My mother had died in childbirth, giving birth to another son, which was a still born child. My father died in his sleep twelve years later." He looked sad.

"I'm sorry, Jesse. I shouldn't have asked," I said softly.

"It's okay, _querida_. I loved my family very much, and I miss them. But Susannah, I am more than glad to be with you," he said.

And at that, the tears that had been forming in my eyes came out, and he kissed me softly.


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five:**

I was so caught up in the fact that I was lying in Jesse's arms and that he'd told me that he loved me in words that meant so much, that I'd forgotten all about Adeline McClellan and her request.

The request that would cause Jesse to fail his semester exam if he decided to let Adeline have her way. And that would ruin all of the work he'd been doing for the past two years, and I couldn't let that happen. There had to be another way to solve the problem.

My problem with that was that I couldn't think of a way to make Adeline happy without putting Jesse's future as a doctor at stake. I suppose I could have asked him - hypothetically, of course - what he thought of asking his professor for an alternate assignment, or for another body to dissect - perhaps he could say that he would be too embarrassed to complete the assignment if he had to see a woman in her all-together…even if the said woman was a member of the dearly departed.

But I didn't want to spoil the moment, which is something I'm terribly good at, what with always asking him dumb questions about completely random things, or making him feel sad by asking him about his family.

Oh, God. Jesse's family. How, I wondered, would I ever be able to explain to my mother why Jesse's family wouldn't be at our wedding? If Jesse and I even get married, I mean. I suppose we could tell her that his entire family was dead, but then she'd want to know how they died. And given that her job is a TV news anchor, we wouldn't exactly be able to say that they had died in a fatal car crash along Highway 1 or anything because she would have heard something about it if they had. And we could never say that they lived in Spain because then she'd want to know what kind of people they were if they didn't even want to buy a plane ticket to America for such a momentous occasion in their son's life.

But Jesse would have to propose first, which he showed absolutely no sign in doing.

Not that I've been reading about it in Cosmo and then comparing his actions to what an article I read last month said he'd do if he were thinking about popping the question, or anything.

Jesse has not, as the article said he would if he were considering marriage, asked me if I'd ever thought about marrying him, nor has he, as the article also stated he would also do if he considered me fit as a life partner, asked me anything about what we'd name our kids or where we'd live if we were to be moving in together. Not that he would want to live with me before wedlock or anything. When he was dead, that was different, because it'd be hard for a dead guy to… you know…not that he would have done that.

But now that he's alive, it's easier to give into temptation, he says.

He most definitely does have the will-power not to give in to temptation, but he actually admitted - albeit, rather red-faced and embarrassed - to me that there was indeed temptation. _Excellent!_

So I had been lying there in Jesse's arms, thinking about how great it would be if he just suddenly decided to give in to temptation and kiss me passionately like the guys in my mom's books do to women when they are anywhere in the vicinity of a flat surface, when Adeline decided to show up. And this time, hysterical didn't even begin to cover it.

She materialized subtly, and neither of us had seen her standing there over us in Jesse's bedroom.

Until she shrieked. And then she started screaming.

"WHY HAVEN'T YOU TOLD HIM YET? I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU WHAT WAS WRONG. THEY SAID YOU WOULD HELP ME, AND YOU OBVIOUSLY HAVEN'T SAID A WORD. HE'S DOING IT TOMORROW, AND YOU HAVEN'T EVEN TALKED TO HIM YET."

Actually, I had. Or at least I thought I had.

I didn't realize that Adeline had been referring to a different Jesse, not my Jesse.

Jesse, shocked as I was, looked at her. "_Nombre de Dios_, miss," he breathed. "What _is_ your problem?"

"MY _PROBLEM? _MY PROBLEM IS THAT _SHE_ FORGOT TO TELL HIM! SHE DIDN'T EVEN _BOTHER_ TO FIND HIM AND TELL HIM NOT TO DO IT," she yelled, pointing at me. Thank God no one besides me and Jesse could hear her because Jesse would have been in so much trouble with his neighbors right then.

"Susannah?" Jesse said, eyeing me questioningly.

"Um…Adeline." I took a deep breath. I couldn't help but noticed that I'd involuntarily become very interested in the comforter on Jesse's bed. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know who you were talking about. I thought you were talking about him," I pointed at Jesse. "But apparently, I had the wrong guy. Listen, your body is of no value to you now. Your body died, and I know it won't be a picnic seeing your body dissected, Adeline, but it won't hurt you."

"It won't…?" she asked, not believing me. "But why?"

"It won't hurt you at all," Jesse said. Well, if anyone, he'd know, having been dead before and all.

"Really?" she asked. She had no way of knowing Jesse's past, so I don't really blame her for not believing him right away.

"Really," he said compassionately. Yet another wonderful thing about my boyfriend: he actually cares about people. I could totally see Jesse as a doctor, you know, as much as he liked helping others.

"Okay then," Adeline said. I noticed that she was crying. "Sorry to have bothered you so. I know I must have interrupted something." She smiled kind of sadly - I thought, anyway, but, who knows?She could have been happy- and faded away to her afterlife. For once, I'd managed not to get angry with a member of the undead, and I'd handled her quite rationally, if I may say so myself.

Actually, she hadn't interrupted anything, except some nice daydreams I'd been having. Daydreams that had a snowball's chance in hell of actually coming true any time soon.

I had hoped that maybe Jesse and I could get to work on fulfilling those dreams somewhat, and he'd forget all about Adeline McClellan and what she'd wanted. I didn't really feel like explaining that one to Jesse. But this is my life, and not a movie, so things didn't happen the way I'd wanted them to. Jesse, as usual, wanted an explanation.

"Susannah….exactly what was that all about?" Jesse asked.

Suddenly, I wished Adeline had taken me with her.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

I so did not want to explain to Jesse about what Adeline had wanted, but nevertheless, he didn't stop insisting that I tell him until I finally spilled it out. He has the most uncanny ability to do that to me. He just looks at me a certain way, and everything just comes spilling out.

Usually, the silky, persuasive voice he uses on me plays a pretty sizeable part in the whole information-spilling thing, but not this time. He was all-business.

As if the flat tone of voice and piercing look in his eye didn't convey that message.

I had a feeling that there would be no making out today. Unfortunately.

Damn. It's all Adeline's fault.

So, I just sat there, fruitlessly attempting to make up some kind of lie, as usual.

"Um, Jesse. You know how you're going to dissect a dead body in your class?" I said. Lying, I knew, would only serve to make him even more frustrated with me.

"Eventually, I will, yes," he said boredly. He just wanted me to get on with what I was going to say.

"She died, and her parents donated her body to the study of medical science. She didn't like that idea so much. And…well, she came to me and told me to tell some dude not to dissect her body…"

"And…?"

"I didn't tell him."

"Why?"

"Um, because," I started to say really, really fast. I wanted to get it over with quickly before I regretted it. "I thought she was talking about you, and if you went ahead and dissected her body, she'd get mad, and if you listened to her, you'd fail your class, and I couldn't let that happen, but it turns out she was talking about someone else, and so now she's really, really mad at me." My voice got really high-pitched at the end of the sentence. Great. I can't make my voice smooth and sexy when I talk to Jesse. Fine. I can deal. But now I can't even sound the least bit _normal _while talking to him. Jeez. What is _wrong _with me?

I don't know how I expected him to react. It would have been nice if he'd murmured a sympathetic apology into my hear in that sexily smooth voice of his.

But no. He started laughing harder than I'd ever seen him laugh before. This inevitably pissed me off. God, how could he think that was funny? I'd just been yelled at because of him. And now he was laughing at me because of it. Why? Nothing I said was funny, at least not to me. I didn't exactly expect him to grab me and start kissing me, thanking me for trying to keep him from failing his class. It would have been nice, though.

I got up and locked myself in his bathroom. _Mature, _Suze, I said to myself. _Way for a nineteen-year-old girl to act in front of her boyfriend. _

Not to mention the fact that bathrooms are never the nicest places to hang out. Jesse keeps his clean and all, but still, it's a bathroom.

"Susannah," he said in his silkiest voice. "Come out of there. Don't be like this. I didn't mean to laugh. But it _was_ a little funny."

"Go away. It's not funny at all!" I said. How old am I anyway? Nine?

"Susannah…come out of the bathroom, please. I promise I won't laugh anymore," he said.

"No."

"Fine, I'm coming in there," he said.

I locked the door just as his hand touched the doorknob.

"Susannah, really now. Come out," Jesse said.

"Fine," I said, unlocking the door. "But it's not funny."

"Oh, Susannah. I didn't mean to laugh like that. It's just funny, is all. It's funny because the other day, she came to me and said the same thing. There's a young man in the class after mine. His name is Jesse also," he said. I could tell he was trying not to laugh. "I told him. Apparently, she didn't know it."

"Then why did you ask me who she was?"

"I just wanted to see what you'd say."

"Ha-ha," I said sarcastically.

"Let's go get some lunch," Jesse said.

Since the whole time-travel thing (and I really, really try not to think about it often. I have bad dreams and chills just thinking about that night. Also, I don't like to think about having nearly lost the love of my life. Three times, if you want to be technical. Let's see, there's the thing where Paul had Jesse exorcised, thing with Jesse thinking I didn't love him, and then there's the time-travel fiasco, where I nearly killed Jesse's body and caused his soul to move on to the Other Side), Jesse's favorite foods are pizza, hamburgers, and everything Andy cooks.

Since Andy probably didn't have dinner ready, we were either going to eat pizza or hamburgers. This was not a problem.

"Hamburgers all right with you?" he asked.

"Of course." I didn't really care. I was with Jesse. I would have gone with him anywhere.

We got to the In-N-Out Burger, and I saw that we'd have a new ghost-busting project.

This one, I saw, wouldn't be fun. It wouldn't be fun at all. Because the people I saw were kids. The kind of kids who would become ghosts just so they could put cherry bombs in toilets and never get in trouble, the kind of kids who would paint each other's fingernails just so living people who weren't mediators could get freaked out by seeing floating finger nails in the air. Poltergeists.

"Jesse," I said pointing. "Look."

He looked. Right then, a boy who looked to be about fifteen picked up a fork and waved it around. His gaze drifted to a woman who was looking at the floating fork like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. Well, I didn't blame her - she couldn't see what was holding the fork in the air.

"_Nombre de Dios,"_ Jesse said. "I read a newspaper article about a group of children in an automobile accident the other week. I think we've found them."

I was very thankful for the evening Jesse and I had shared the night before. I had a feeling we wouldn't have another night so wonderful again for sometime, what with college and all. Not to mention our latest case of ghost-busting.


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

Jesse and I sat down in a booth. A middle-aged, but friendly, waitress came over and took our orders. She smiled cheerfully - well, most waitresses and receptionists do when the get a really good look at Jesse - and took our menus away.

"What are we going to do about…?" I said, subtly nodding my head in the direction of the group of mischievous ghosts, who were currently stealing bread from baskets and bending forks and spoons for no particular reason, except to be a pain in the butt to the people who were trying to enjoy their evening meals at the In-N-Out Burger. At least they couldn't see what was behind the nuisance. I could, and I knew that when they realized that Jesse and I could see them, they would come over and pester us.

"Right now," Jesse said, knowing what I meant, "we are going to eat. We will deal with the issue at hand later on."

I sighed. Really, why did we have to have so many ectoplasmic disturbances in one day? Couldn't a girl and her boyfriend have a nice time together for once, without disturbances of the ectoplasmic variety? Or any disturbances, for that matter? I tried not to voice those sentiments to Jesse, what with him having been a ghost before and all. He always disagreed with me about the "disturbances" because he was convinced that we had to drop whatever we were doing (whether it be eating, sleeping, writing a report on the human body's immune system, or making out) and help the poor lost souls make it to their respectful destinations. I don't know if he really noticed that the ghosts we mediated together - along with school and his job - took time away from "us."

Oh man, did I ever notice, though.

"What is the matter, Susannah?" Jesse asked, noticing my heavy sigh.

"Nothing , really. I'm just tired," I said quickly. Too quickly, I realized. He probably didn't think I was telling the truth. _The truth is, Jesse, _I thought, _I'm tired of ghosts. I just want to make out with you, Jesse. Or at least talk to you…I haven't really been able to really talk to you in a while. We seem to hardly have time for each other now because we're both so busy. In a way, I still wish you were dead and had nothing to do, because then we'd get to see each other, but I'm really glad that you're alive - more than glad, really, but I don't know how to put it - because we have a future together. _Only how could I tell him that?

He eyed me warily. "Are you sure? I could swear that you're feeling sad…" he said.

"No, I'm just tired, really, Jesse," I said.

He looked like he wanted to say something, but, luckily, our food arrived.

The waitress smiled at us in a sickening way. "Can I get you kids anything?" she asked.

"We're fine, thank you," Jesse said.

"Yes," I agreed. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said with another smile, and then she turned around to console a poor woman whose hot tea mug had been deliberately dumped on her by the ghost of a guy who looked to be about fourteen years-old.

"Um, Jesse, I think we need to get to work," I said after the woman started hyperventilating. The manager came over and made her breathe through a paper bag, asking her husband if he'd like for the manager to call an ambulance.

"I agree," he said.

"Well, we can't exactly walk up to them and tell them to cut it out, though," I said.

"Yes, I know. We'll have to talk to them somewhere else, somewhere more private. We should try and get their attention, though, so they will know that we'll help them."

Jesse whistled slightly, but that didn't work. They just kept right on playing with other people's food and drinks. A very young-looking girl was just then taping down a soda-fountain dispenser so that it would pour Diet Pepsi down the drain.

"Let me try," I said.

I tried to get the ghosts' attention by making eye-contact with the Spilled Tea Mug boy. When that didn't work, I tried making eye-contact with a girl who looked to be about sixteen or so. She noticed. Her eyes met mine, and I felt a stab of sadness. She'd been the only one not to get involved with the havoc her friends were reaping onto the restaurant.

She nodded at Jesse and me, and then she said to her friends, as one of the boys was spraying Cool Whip into the air at one of the other kids, "Guys, that's enough. I've found help." The boy continued to spray the Cool Whip. "Josh…" her voice broke. She was crying. "Stop…it…we shouldn't behave like this…it's not good…not nice at all…" She sniffled. "They're over here," she said, pointing at us. "They'll help us later…?"

I nodded. She gave me a watery smile. "Thanks," she said. "We'll follow you out of the restaurant, okay?"

"She looks so sad. I wonder what their problem is," I said to Jesse.

"Are you actually interested in a ghost's problem?" he asked.

"Hey! That's not fair," I said, fake-punching him on the arm, laughing.

"No one ever said life was fair, Susannah." He grinned.

He took hold of my hand and gave it a slight squeeze. A very pleasant tingly feeling worked its way up and down my spine and through the hand he was holding. "I love you, Susannah," he said.

I smiled, beaming with happiness. It was the first time he'd ever said it where anyone else might have heard him. It was also the first time he'd overcome his disdain for PDA and held my hand in public. "I love you, too."


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

My happiness was short-lived, however, when we were finished eating. That's because it was time to mediate the ghosts of four kids, who looked to be around sixteen to about fourteen or so, and full of mischievous pranks to play on the living (lucky) humans who couldn't see them.

And the only ones, it turned out, who actually wanted help were Madelleon, the sixteen-year-old girl, and her brother Malcom, who was fifteen - and the leader of all the pranks.

They were eager to share their story with Jesse and me when we got back to Jesse's apartment - the easiest location for us to mediate from, since no one but Ms. Finke, Jesse's landlady, ever disturbed us, and even then, it was just so she could bring him cookies or whatever. Seriously, that little old lady gives him cookies. This kind of makes me feel ashamed of myself, since I have never learned to cook:  
I am the championess of not being able to cook. The last time I used the microwave, I set it on fire, and the last time I cooked Ramen noodles, they wound up being crunchy and slightly burned.

We all sat down in Jesse's living room, and Madelleon - or Maddie, she preferred to be called - began their story.

"We were driving on that really curvy road next to the sea, the one my parents had always told me not to drive on. I didn't want to drive on it, but my boyfriend wanted me to come and see him - he lives on that road. I told him I was babysitting, but he's a really cool guy, so he just told me to bring the kids along with me. He said that we'd all hang out at his place and play video games and watch movies. I thought it would be okay, just that once, to drive on that road - I really wanted to see Travis, after all - but we crashed, and…and…" She'd been doing well up until that point, but then she started to sob. I patted her shoulder, unsure of what to do.

"He blames himself!" She sobbed harder. "It's…all…my stupid…my stupid fault. He was st-star quarterback, st-straight-A student, everything, and now it's all ruined because I d-d-died!" I hugged her. I felt sorry for her, I really did. Let's face it, if I had not felt sorry for her, I would not have been so touchy-feely. I do not normally hug people, with the exceptions of Jesse and my mom.

"I don't know why I'm here," Malcom said. "Same goes for the rest of us. We don't know why we're here."

"Is there anything you wish for your family to know?" Jesse asked.

"Well, I want to tell my mom and dad and the baby I love them," the fourteen-year-old girl said. Her name was Jennifer. It was really hard to believe she was fourteen.

"Yeah, Jenny. And I'm going to miss the way Matt kept spitting up on you, too," her brother Nathaniel said. "It was way rad." Nathaniel, it had turned out, was actually twelve. He didn't look so old, I realized, once I looked at him up close. He reminded me of David, but only a little. He was more out-going than David was.

"That wasn't funny, that was gross," Jenny said.

"So you want your parents and your younger brother to know that you love them," Jesse said.

"Yes," they said simultaneously.

"Was your younger brother in the car with you that day?" Jesse asked.

"Yeah, he was, but that little plastic baby car-seat kept him from getting hurt when the other car hit us. He was in the backseat, right behind Maddie. Maddie and Malcom both died right away; but Nate and I only died after wards, of complications," Jenny said.

"Oh, I see," Jesse said.

Maddie was still crying five minutes later. I had a feeling that she was going to be crying for a while. "Listen, Maddie, what happened, it's not your fault, none of it. Okay? Look, your boyfriend just loves you and misses you. He will be happy again one day and he'll always remember you," I said, trying to calm her down and smooth things out for her.

"But he'll _never_ be happy! He will never move on! He killed himself!" she said.

Oh my God. _Why_ don't I read the obituary section of the newspaper? I mean, I don't even read the _front page _of the newspaper, but I should really start reading the obits. I mean, it would save Jesse and me a lot of time in the mediation process. If we already knew how our clients had died, we'd be closer to helping them find out what it was that was making them hang around on Earth indefinitely.

"Well then, what concern do you have about him?" I asked. I had not been prepared to deal with the ghost of a girl whose boyfriend had committed suicide. The only similar thing I'd dealt with was a girl who killed herself because her boyfriend dumped her, and then when she'd figured out that she was dead, she decided to try and off her boyfriend. And then there _was_ Maria, who had ordered the hit on Jesse, but I didn't want to think about that.

"I want to make sure he's happy now. I want to see him again, and I want to love him," she said dreamily.

"Then all you have to do is move on. Move on from Earth and go to wherever it is ghosts are supposed to go. All you have to know is that you can see him again on the other side" - I didn't know if that was true, but it sounded good to me, at least - "and that he'll be okay when he sees you."

"Really?" she asked.

"Yes. Really," I assured her.

"Tell Mom and Dad I love them," she said, glowing with happiness for the first time since I'd seen her. Then she faded away.

The others decided to leave shortly after, after we made them promise that they wouldn't destroy anything else while they waited for us to find their parents and tell them that their children loved them.

"Excellent job, Susannah. You did well tonight. You did not lose your temper once, and you were very helpful to Madeleon," Jesse said, pulling me into a hug. "Now, let's get you home before you parents get angry."

I didn't even bother to tell him that Mom and Andy wouldn't be mad or anything, since they clearly saw how much Jesse and I adored each other.

Jesse drove me to my house - it was sadly a very short trip - and he told me not to worry about the other three ghosts, since I'd done such a great job with Maddie. I protested, telling him that he didn't have time, but he told me that he would make some time. I didn't want to burst my little bubble of happiness by arguing, so I said good-bye, and went inside.

I didn't have to worry about bursting my bubble of happiness because Brad did it for me.

"Jesus, what are you so happy about?" Brad said. "What, did he propose?"

"Get a life," Jake said. "Can't you see she's happy for once. Jeez, Brad, you're an idiot."

And then the two of them proceeded to get into a fight, and they started rolling around on the floor like a couple of losers, hitting each other. I would like to say that I was touched by Jake's sudden display of brotherly devotion to my happiness, but really, I think he was just looking for an opportunity to jump Brad about the Camaro.

Whatever.

I went up the stairs to my room, but Mom stopped me. "Susie, are you forgetting to say hello to your mother who loves you very much?" she said teasingly.

I smiled. "No, of course not!" I went back down the stairs and hugged my mom.

"Susie," she said. "I want to talk to you, in private."

Great. Just _great_.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

As soon as my mom said she wanted to speak to me in private, my mind began reeling. What on Earth did she want to talk to me about? Whatever it was, it could not have been good. I mean, otherwise, she would have had her say right there in the TV room, but she wanted to talk to me alone in my room instead, which could only mean one thing: She wanted to ask me if Jesse and I were sleeping together. That was the only possibility my poor tired brain could conjure up, and it was logical to me that she'd ask that. I had, after all, spent the night at my boyfriend's place, and he and I had been dating for over two years. Everyone I knew (except Father Dom and Jesse himself) wouldn't have thought twice about the possibility of me sleeping with Jesse, unless they knew him well enough to know that he'd never deflower me before he married me, and I'd thought my mom had known him well enough to know that I was not sleeping with him. So why was she asking now?

I had to quickly think of a lie to protect myself. I mean, what girl wants to discuss her sex life (or in my case, lack thereof) with her mother? I mean, I am nineteen. I can fully get my own birth control pills without my mother's knowledge or permission. Also, who wants to discuss her boyfriend's naked body with her mother? No one, especially if the said mother has been spotted giving the said boyfriend the old hairy eyeball during Sunday dinner.

As fate would have it, I was at a total loss for a good lie to cover up for what Jesse and I had been doing. I mean, the truth, which was that we were only watching movies (okay, so there was a little bit of making out. Sue me. Or one second thought, don't), wouldn't sound very convincing, even though it _was_ the truth.

We climbed up the stairs to my room, and we went inside. Mom shut the door after her. Whatever it was she was going to say, she did not want our discussion to be overheard by anyone else in the family.

"Mom, you know Jesse and I totally aren't " I started to say, but Mom cut me off.

"I know you aren't. He's too polite. That isn't what I was going to talk to you about," she said.

I sighed in relief. It wasn't? Oh, no. It must have been worse. I mean, why else would she have shut my door like that?

"Susie! You are never going to believe this. Earlier today at the station, I pulled a story from my notes, and you were on it! Susie, your purse won the contest your professor entered it into, and it's been sold to Le Sportsac. It's going to be called 'Suze Simon for Le Sportsac.' Isn't that wonderful, Suze? You're going to be a big success! Remember how successful Gwen Stefani's bag was? Oh, I'm so proud of you, Susie!"

"Really, Mom? You're serious?" I was suddenly very happy. I mean, it's not every day that a girl's fashion design class assignment gets sold to a famous bag company.

Not to mention the fact that I was going to receive payment for the bag's design, and for its sales once it was made and sold.

"Yes, really. And one more thing " Uh oh. That didn't sound so good. " Gina called and asked if she could fly out and stay for the summer. I told her she could, so Gina will be here next month in June," Mom said.

"Really? Oh, Mom. Thank you!" I hugged my mom. Gosh, I hadn't seen Gina in a long time. I wonder how she'd look, and whether she'd have a boyfriend. She and I had only sent a few letters, but the letters were starting to grow few and far between, which was partly my fault because I was so stuck on Jesse. And, you know, college is not exactly what I'd call fun. It makes high school look like a trip to the beach, which my high school career most certainly was not.

Since I'd enrolled in The Art Institute of California in San Francisco and Jesse had enrolled at University of Northern California, we'd both been all school, school, school, and then, finally each other. I'd had so little time for much else. Even my shopping had suffered a little: I no longer begged my mom to take me to the outlets and let me have an all-day shop-till-I-drop-and-pop-Jimmy-Choo-one-in-the-face day. First of all, I have my own car now, so my mom didn't need to drive me, and, again, I didn't really have time to go all the way to the outlets. I had to stick close to Carmel and San Francisco for shopping purposes.

Mom eventually left, and I started on making the designs for my next assignment. Then the phone rang.

"Oh my God, Suze! I can't believe you won it!" CeeCee shrieked into the phone and into my ear.

"Hey, Cee," I said.

"I mean, Suze, you stitched your own skirt to the cloth when you were taking Basic Sewing Techniques in Fashion 210, which everyone is still trying to figure out how you did that, by the way. How did you ever manage to make a bag, and how did it win?"

"Ugh. Thanks for reminding me about that, Cee," I said, remembering that day in the first semester when I had actually done what she'd said and stitched my skirt to the scrap piece of cloth we'd been told to sew a button onto. Professor Simmons was always happy to point out that little incident every chance she got in her Fashion 230 class, Pattern Making, which I was also enrolled in. She'd always say things like, "Now, Suze, be sure not to cut the patter out of you jeans instead of you pattern-making paper." I don't think she liked me much, but that might have had something to do with the fact that she was forty and unmarried, and Jesse had sent flowers to me at the school during her class on my nineteenth birthday. She had not been very happy about this, and it only got worse after she met Jesse.

"Yeah. Sorry. Anyway, I can't believe it! Suze! You're going to be great."

"Thanks. How's Journalism going, Cee?"

"Oh it's great. I have to do an internship this summer. I'm interning at _The Los Angeles Times _in July. I have to keep a log of everything I do while I'm there and everything. I don't know how I'm supposed to do all this and manage a long-distance relationship with Adam." She sighed. "I haven't actually seen him in forever, same as you. Gosh. But I'm coming home to Carmel next month, and so is Adam, and you'll be there, right?"

"Yeah."

"So it'll be just like old times!" CeeCee said.

"Yep."

"Can't wait to see you guys. Well, I have to go. My roommate wants to use the phone, and she makes Kelly Prescott look nice."

I laughed. "See you next month, Cee."

"Bye, Suze."

I finished up my design and looked at it with some pride. I had really come a long way since I'd stitched myself to the scrap piece of cloth, which had completely ruined my best Betsey Johnson skirt (that really made me mad). Maybe someday I would be great.

I took a shower and got ready for bed. I set my alarm clock and clapped out the lights.

I'd have a long drive to San Francisco and back, but it would be worth it on graduation day.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Chapter Ten **

I woke up late the next morning, which was not unusual on a Monday. I raced around to get ready for school, and I would have been late for class, but I was lucky to have a later class Fashion 203: Design Skills and Application, which was pretty much the same as one of my other classes, but I had to take both in order to get my degree. I probably should have gotten a dorm, but when I saw how drab they were (um, there was some brown sticky stuff on the floor under a girl's refrigerator, and I think I saw a mouse, and I _know_ I saw _mold_ growing on one of the walls), I managed to convince Mom and Andy to let me stay with them. I have to pay them rent (to teach me responsibility, as an apartment complex or mortgage company won't let me stay in an apartment or a house for free), but I have plenty of baby sitting money saved up. Since my rent wasn't that much, I bought a car so I could drive to my school. It was a hassle, but I didn't want to move away from Jesse or the beach, so it was worth it to me.

On my way out of the door with a bagel and my books, my mom handed me a letter from Gina, which had arrived on Saturday, but my mom had forgotten to give it to me.

I went to my car, and although it would delay me, I read it anyway.

_**Suze,**_

_**Girl, we haven't seen each other in a ridiculously long time. I'm heading your way, dude. I'll be in Cali on June 12, so look out for me! We have a ton of catching up to do. **_

_**As it turns out, I'm not studying to be a brain surgeon. I think knowing your future somehow allows you to change it. But you can't change the mediator thing, can you? You're stuck with it, right? Well, it must be cool to see ghosts and stuff, right? I guess not, as you would see them ALL THE TIME.** _

She was right. I could not change the fact that I was a mediator like she could change whether she would be a brain surgeon. And it did get old, you know, talking to dead people all the time. The only perk I'd ever received for being a mediator was the whole time-traveling back to Jesse's time and accidentally bringing his body back to the twenty-first century. And really, that wasn't exactly a perk, it was just an accident. It was a very good accident, but still. It's not like I got any brownie points off of it. I read on.

_**Speaking of doctors, isn't your boyfriend, the Famous Jesse I've heard so much about (who you are, by the way, going to introduce me to as soon as I get there. I want to see if he's nearly as hot as you've said), studying to be a doctor? Is Jesse The One, you know the One you're supposed to love forever?** _

Jesse was actually hotter than what I'd let on to Gina. I just didn't see telling her in a letter exactly how hot he was. Frankly, I didn't want her to meet him. I knew she'd think he was hot. Plus, I was scared she'd try and flirt with him or something. But, Jesse was _The One._ I knew it. I'd never told him that though. I figured it would make good conversation on our wedding night, if we ever got married. Of course, part of me didn't want to tell him at all; I half-wanted to keep it a secret. I read on.

_**Well, I haven't succeeded in finding a new boyfriend here in New York since James and I broke up, so I'm going boyfriend (as well as outlet) shopping while I'm in Carmel to see you. Are either Brad or Jake available? Because if they are, I'd be glad to renew acquaintances with them!**_

_Um, ew,_ I thought. I so didn't think I wanted to give Gina an honest answer to that question.

_**Nothing really would have worked out between James and me because he's one of those band types who only really cared about his music. And his pot.** _

_Ew,_ I thought. _Why would she date such a guy?_ I read on.

_**I only wanted to date James for the experience of dating a musician. He was really nice, and he showed me a lot of really cool music. I'm going to bring my CDs to Carmel with me so you can hear what he listened to aroundme. I didn't really like much of it at first, but now I really like it. I think you'll like some of it, too. **_

_**Back to Jesse...What's he like? And if you met him when you first moved to Carmel, why didn't you introduce me to him when I came out to California that one time?** _

_Um, that's because Jesse was a ghost then, and I couldn't introduce you to him,_ I thought.

_**And don't forget, Simon, you're going to tell me all about that mediator thing. Or I get to go on a date with Jesse! Just kidding, girl, but I really want to know about the mediator thing. **_

_**XOXO,**_

_**Gina**_

_**PS you really need to tell me EVERYTHING that's happened since I last saw you. I mean it. Don't worry, I'll share with you!**_

There would be no getting around it this time. I mean, Gina already knew. CeeCee knew. It was time I told them all of the truth.

I also needed to pay Father Dom a visit. I hadn't seen him in a while.

I cranked the car. I decided that I could e-mail my professors to get my make-up work. I needed a personal day off from school.

* * *

I pulled up to the mission. I hadn't been there in a while, and it hadn't changed much. Then again, it was built in the 1700s, and all they'd done in that time was add electricity and indoor plumbing (thank God. I don't think I would have been able to attend a school for two and a half years if I'd had to use a stinky little outhouse and use a corncob or paper that wasn't even fit to write on to you know….)

I sneaked my way past the novices (not an easy task). They were good at spotting and I slunk my way to Father Dom's office. I knocked on the heavy wooden door.

"Father Dominic?" I said.

"Susannah. What a lovely surprise. Did you bring Jesse?" He said. He looked genuinely glad to see me.

"Nope. I'm all by myself. Hope that doesn't bother you. I cut class today because I wanted to come see you."

"Susannah." He looked stern.

"What?"

"You shouldn't have skipped school to come and see me. What are you studying?"

"Fashion design."

"I could see you designing clothes." He chuckled.

"How is Jesse?"

"You know, same old, same old. Studying hard, working hard, petting that stupid cat Spike," I said.

"Well, I'm sure he'll be a great doctor someday, Susannah. And as for Spike, that is a terrible name for a cat, but the cat is a terrible cat," he said, smiling. He'd been very glad to get rid of Spike, "that infernal animal" is what Father D had always called Spike. I don't blame him. That cat was just weird. "Well, Susannah, what is it you wanted to talk about?"

"Well, whatever happened between you and that girl?" That's what I'd gone to talk to him about. I was really curious.

"Susannah, now is really not the time. I have much paperwork to do for the annual charity auction…" he trailed off. He was lying.

"Father Dom."

"Why does it bother you so?" he asked.

"I just want to know! I'm not leaving until you tell me."

"Well, all right, Susannah, since you won't leave until I tell you, I suppose you should know." He took a deep breath. "Her name was Gemma. I was twenty, and she had been fifteen when she'd died of polio, seven years before. I met her when I began to observe teachers at this school for college. She'd been hanging around watching the students and playing pranks. We fell in love shortly after, but it was the wrong thing for me to do because I was keeping her from moving on. I convinced her to move on, and that's when I decided to become a priest." He looked happy and sad at the same time, wrapped in his memories.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"It might have never worked anyway. She and I fought a good bit, but we were crazy about each other."

"Father Dominic, my friend Gina is coming from New York, and she wants to know about the mediator thing, and CeeCee is coming home in July, and she wants to know about it, too, and I don't really want to tell them, but they both are really good friends. What do I do?"

"You tell them. And, Susannah, you really should tell your mother. She has a right to know."

"No way."

"Susannah, what would you do if you were to marry someone who was not a mediator? Would you just not tell them?"

"I don't have to worry about that."

"How is Mr. Slater? I have not heard from Paul lately," he said.

"He's fine. He's at Harvard, studying to be an evil lawyer who keeps rich celebrities out of jail. He's coming back to Carmel in July. He wants him, Jesse, and me to get together sometime. Dr. Slaski's health is getting really bad. He doesn't have much longer to live. Doctors are really surprised that he's still alive," I said.

"Well, I'm afraid I have much to do today, Susannah. Come back to see me again soon," he said.

"Bye," I said. I then decided to head home to get my bathing suit, and then I'd spend the rest of the day alone on the beach, soaking in some nice sun rays. I needed a well-earned break, after all.


	11. Chapter Eleven

_**One Month Later**_

**Chapter Eleven**

My first year of college is officially over, and I am transferring to the Academy of Art because my old school, the Art Institute, is filled with total and complete _snobs. _

I realize that some people think they're better than others for fairly stupid reasons (think Kelly Prescott and Debbie Mancuso), but to be rude to others because they did something better than you? Well, that's just wrong.

Let me explain. I won the contest my bag was entered into, and it was picked up by Le Sportsac. Not a problem. In fact, it was wonderful. The problem is that some of my classmates were jealous. Apparently, I'm not artsy-_fartsy_ enough for them, and so they just can't believe that my bag won, when their "better" bags could have won. I'm apparently a mere mortal among the gods and goddesses who rein the classroom because neither of my parents are musicians or artists or writers; my dad was a lawyer and my mom is a television news journalist, apparently not "art" material.

Whatever.

Oh, I tried to point out that in the American society, everyone has an equal chance for success, and I even used one of David's sermons about DNA and the usage of Prunnett squares to predict traits in offspring, and even some stuff about recessive and dominant genes, but they just didn't seem to care.

Stupid, stupid, _stupid. _

I'd been going on to Gina about this ever since she'd arrived at the airport, holding two of my handbags which, and this is not my fault, so don't start with me, were not cheap. One, she'd said, was for me, the other was for her. As if I wouldn't look _too_ conceited by carrying around one of my own handbags or anything.

She was excited to see me again, along with the beaches and my stepbrothers. And Jesse. She wanted to meet Jesse. No, I got that wrong: she _demanded _to meet Jesse as soon as we were in my car, on the way to my mom's house. I called Jesse on my cell phone (hey, I _finally_ got one!) and asked him if it would be all right for him to meet Gina (otherwise, he'd be girlfriendless). He said it would be okay, but I could of sworn he sounded funny about it. I tried to think why he would sound funny about meeting Gina. It could have been two reasons:

A) He was still mad at Gina because she called Spike ugly (likely. You just don't make fun of Jesse's baby, no matter how stinky or mean he is. The cat I mean, not Jesse), or  
B) He didn't want to share me with anyone else (not likely. He says that he doesn't want me to miss out on valuable time with my family aka: Andy's gourmet dinners just because of him).

Gina squealed when she saw Jesse. Jesse, who was sitting on the couch, where he'd been reading the newspaper, looked taken aback, clearly not expecting Gina, who was nearly six feet tall with this time fiery red hair and a tongue ring, along with a newly added tattoo on her wrist, to squeal with delight when she'd seen him.

"Jesse," I said, "this is Gina Augustin, and Gina, this is Jesse de Silva, my boyfriend."

Gina smiled in a kind of bashful-stupid way. I could tell what she thought about Jesse without even asking her.

"Um, hi. I've heard a lot about you," she said.

"Please, sit down," Jesse said.

I sat down next to Jesse on the couch. Sorry, Gina. He's mine, babe, BACK OFF!

"I don't believe I can return the compliment," Jesse said. He was lying, but he was only doing it to protect our secret. He wants me to tell my family and friends. _Right_. I'll tell my friends and family that I'm a biological freak who can talk to the dead. And while I'm at it, I'll tell them all about how Jesse used to be dead. Then Jesse won't get to be a medical doctor, he'll just have to be a shrink instead. Only he doesn't see it that way. He says that if they love me, they'll understand. Right. I guess that's one more thing I have to tell him about. People who only believe in what they can see, I mean, because that's how my mom is. If she can't see it, it doesn't exist, with the exception of God. But even in God's case, I think it took a few miracles before she actually believed in Him.

The three of us sat there in a very awkward silence. Really, what was there to talk about? Jesse and Gina had nothing in common (that was obvious), and I had no real way of making them talk to each other. At least Jesse can talk to Adam and CeeCee. He loves them. But, then again, he may not have had much to say to Gina on account of Spike. Spike, who by the way, came waddling into the room to see Jesse. Spike hissed fiercely at Gina.

"Well, the cat's about as friendly as it looks," Gina said. "Suze, wasn't this your cat?"

"Yeah. Jesse wanted him," I said.

Jesse scratched Spike's ear. "I'm afraid he doesn't like girls very much," he said.

"Tell me about it," Gina said. I think she may have remembered what had happened last time she'd made any comments about Spike, the thing with the mirror, I mean.

After Gina and Jesse had a very boring conversation about Spike, Gina and I left Jesse to go home and unpack Gina's stuff.

"Jesse's kind of boring, don't you think?" Gina said as I was putting sheets on the day bed for her.

"No, not really. He just doesn't know you very well, that's all."

"Give up, Suze, you only like him because he's hot," Gina said, giggling.

She was wrong. Boy, was she ever wrong. That may have been true when I'd first met him, but I've known him for two and a half years, and that two and a half years has given me plenty of other reasons to like him.

"That's not true. I love him for a lot of reasons," I said.

"Like what?" she said. This time she was serious.

Oops.

"Well, I don't really want to get into that right now. I was going to tell you and CeeCee and David together. Let's just say it has something to do with my special skills."

The truth was, I just flat-out didn't want to tell her. I'd always felt that the reasons why I loved Jesse should stay between myself and Jesse, and no one else should know about them, but I'd opened my stupid mouth about it, so I had no choice but to tell her. But I could procrastinate about it for as long as possible.

"Okay. But you're not going to get away with not explaining yourself this time, Simon," I'm not leaving California until you give me an explanation."

Just then, David shouted up the stairs that it was time for dinner. It was no surprise to me that Brad and Jake practically fought over who would sit next to Gina. Andy got really mad (well, we were having surf 'n' turf in Gina's honor, and he didn't want anything to get cold) suggested to them that if it was all right with Gina, she could sit between them. Gina consented (she would want to sit between two hot guys. Well, _she_ considered them hot, anyway).

I should have felt sorry for her because she had to sit between those two, but I didn't because I saw her and Jake playing footsie when I accidentally-on-purpose dropped my napkin.

Well, I knew how Gina would be spending her time, and once again, it wouldn't be with me because I was her best friend or anything.


	12. Chapter Twelve

**Chapter Twelve**

I was wrong: Gina did hang out with me, but it was just because she wanted to find out the truth about the mediator stuff, and when I told her that I wouldn't tell her until I could tell CeeCee and David and her at the same time, she decided that she wanted to see which guy was better Jake or Brad.

Disgusting. I could have given her the answer: Neither. Well, actually, Jake was okay, I suppose. Brad, well, he just _wasn't_. I had never really liked Brad all that much because he was a complete and total idiot.

Okay. Maybe that was a _little _harsh, but it was true. Brad was an idiot. I mean, he had failed both English and Spanish twice, and English is his native language, and I've heard Spanish is pretty easy to learn.

Gina was so wasting her time.

But if that's what she wanted to do, she could just go right ahead and do it. Who was I to stop her? If she wanted to hang around with two losers, it shouldn't bother me. It was her own time she was wasting, after all.

CeeCee, Adam, and Paul all made it back to Carmel by the third week of June, and we all (including Jesse) got together to celebrate a "class reunion" of sorts, meaning that we all went to the beach and hung out together on one Saturday afternoon.

Adam busied himself teaching Paul how to surf while Paul's new girlfriend, Allison, tried to get to know me and CeeCee and Gina.

You read that right. Paul has a girlfriend. She's not a mediator, but she's nice. Too nice for Paul actually. I pitied her. Not only was she too nice for Paul, but she wasn't exactly bright.

"So you and Paul knew each other in high school? What was that like?" she asked excitedly. I bet she had been designing her future house she was to share with Paul in her mind. She was probably even naming their future kids.

I tried to think up a convincing lie. It was kind of hard to think of ice cream on a day like today, when I was lying in the sun in my Calvin Klein one-piece and a sarong well, what can I say? I didn't want to freak Jesse out by exposing "too" much skin. There was, I realized, no use in telling her the truth, which was that Paul had had my boyfriend exorcised, and that he was a jerk to his younger brother, and that he once went back in time to keep Jesse from dying, because:

A) She wasn't a mediator; she wouldn't understand. Or okay, maybe she'd understand enough to think I was crazy, or  
B) She and Paul weren't going to get married like she seemed to think.

I kid you not, she thought she was going to _marry_ Paul Slater. Boy was she ever wrong.

She was nice, that was obvious, but she was more than a little in-the-dark about Paul: She was in a blackhole where he was concerned. Otherwise, she might not have wanted anything to do with him.

Allison, didn't know, like I knew, that Paul used to be a real jerk, who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. That's been improved a little over the years, but it will never go away. Paul will never be able to love another person unconditionally. Paul will always be too selfish to commit himself fully to another person for life. He would never, I knew, risk his life for someone else. Paul's family, I knew, was not a good place to raise children if you wanted them to grow up and be at least semi-normal.

I doubted that Allison knew that.

I had to answer carefully. I didn't want to ruin what she thought she had with Paul. "He was okay," I said. "Not much different than he is now." I looked at Jesse. I could totally tell that he was listening. I think it'd be kind of naïve for me to think that he wasn't a little bit miffed to have Paul in so close a vicinity. "But I am really glad he found someone like you. You two will be great together." _While it lasts, anyway, _I thought to myself.

"Really? You think so?" she asked brightly. Allison was obviously not the brightest, which was kind of sad since she, like Paul, was studying to be a lawyer.

"Uh-huh. Yeah, listen. I'm going to get a Diet Coke. It was nice talking with you, Allison," I said in an effort to ditch her. I really wanted to go and talk to CeeCee, who was huddled under a huge umbrella. I wanted to see if CeeCee wanted to go with me to get a Diet Coke, since it was so hot, and she was likely to be burning up in her blue turtleneck shirt and light khaki pants.

But no. Allison wanted to tag along. I swear she was just like an older version of Debbie Mancuso, and I was supposed to be her Kelly you know, the one she was supposed to cling to and feed off of like a leech? That'd be the one.

I can sum up the situation in one word: _Ew. _

"Uh, hi, I don't believe I know you," CeeCee said to Allison as Allison and I walked up. CeeCee hadn't been paying too much attention to anything because she kept staring at Adam as he surfed. She was so in love with him. Did I mention that things had gotten really serious between those two? Yeah, they are. I keep waiting for CeeCee to call me and tell me that they're engaged, but she says that she and Adam want to wait until they're out of college and have jobs and whatnot.

Well at least they'd been talking about marriage. Jesse hadn't even said the M word to me. Ever. Well, he had, back when he was a ghost, and he was telling me how I needed to be with someone alive so I could get married and have kids.

But now he was alive, and we were together, so what _gives? _

"I'm Allison. Paul's girlfriend. You know Paul, right?"

"Yeah, I know him," CeeCee said. It was obvious she didn't really like Allison all that much. Apparently, CeeCee also sensed the Debbie Mancuso likeness in Allison.

Or maybe it was because Allison was in her way of seeing Adam surf.

Eventually, when Allison realized that I wasn't actually going to get a Diet Coke, she left to go see Paul, who'd given up on learning to surf.

I called Gina over. She came running over from her towel, where she'd been stretched out, getting a tan.

"There's something I need to explain to you guys later on when we get back to my house," I said. There was no use in beating around the bush. They needed to know. If I couldn't tell my mom, I could at least tell my best friends. "I hope it's okay if I let David come in, too. I think he needs to know what I'm going to tell you just about as much as you guys want to."

"It's the mediator thing, isn't it?" CeeCee said.

"It is," I said.

"Simon has owed me a huge explanation for a really long time," Gina explained. "I used to see her come into school with dark circles around her eyes, and she was always late for class."

"Gina, cut it out!" I said.

"Well, you're going to tell CeeCee anyway," she said.

While CeeCee and Gina started talking about how unfair I was for not letting them in on my secret a long time ago, I went over to see how Jesse was.

"Hey," I said, sitting down next to him. He seemed to be in deep thought. He thinks a lot sometimes. I think he misses his family, or maybe he wishes he could find some friends of his own. Since he doesn't want to be friends with guys like Brad and Jake the kind of guys who wear baggy pants and say swear words in front of girls and basically have no manners at all he's pretty much stuck with being friends with CeeCee, Adam, David, Paul, Father Dominic, and me. He had a few casual buddies in some of his medical classes, but no real friends.

"Hello, Susannah," he said, dazed. I watched as he moved his gaze from the ocean to me. The wind tugged a little at his hair, which looked kind of curly and messy, but in a good way.

"You okay?" I asked.

"I'm fine. I just want to go somewhere a little more peaceful is all," he said. What? Was he insane? The beach was peaceful. There could be nothing more peaceful than a sunny, warm day on a California beach with the waves crashing in slowly, while the rest of the ocean sparkled and flashed Morse-code SOSs at you.

"Peaceful…where?"

"I'll show you," he said, getting up. He took my hand and pulled me off of the towel, which was good because I was so sun-drunk I did not want to move.

I followed him to a really quiet, really secluded place on the beach.

"Here," he said. "I love it here. It's so relaxing. I was worried that it had disappeared since…" He trailed off, but I knew what he meant. "But it's still here."

"Yeah it is. Relaxing, I mean," my voice was kind of squeaky. I hate it when that happens. I also hate it when I don't say things the right way just because Jesse's around. "What were you thinking about? Back there" I pointed to the spot on the beach where all my friends were "I mean?"

"Oh…that. It is nothing, Susannah."

"Jesse," I said. "If there's anything wrong, you can tell me." I put my arms around him, hoping that a little contact would help him come around.

No such luck. "Nothing is wrong with me, _querida," _he said, stroking my hair. He pushed some of my hair out of my face and kissed me. "Nothing at all," he said with a smile.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Chapter Thirteen**

I'd thought he was going to propose. I really had. But no. No such luck. Things like that don't happen to _me. _

Okay, okay. Good things _do_ happen to me. Like meeting Jesse, Jesse being alive, winning the purse competition thing. But will Jesse _ever_ propose? The jury's still out on that one, folks.

I was thinking of all this while he and I walked back to the group of people we'd gone to hang around with on the beach. I don't know what he was thinking, but I think he knew what I was thinking about.

Or at least I hope he did.

"What we were thinking about, anyway?" I asked.

He threw a sideways glance at me. "You don't know?" He was smiling at me. God how I love that smile. That secret smile that is just for me.

"No."

"The future," he said meaningfully. This was _good_. This was _very _good.

"What about it?"

Okay. So I was prodding him. Big deal. I wanted to know what he was thinking about. Can you blame a girl for wanting to know what her boyfriend is thinking? What kind of girlfriend would I be if I pretended not to care?

"That's for me to know…and you to find out later," he said mysteriously. The enigma that is Jesse, I swear. He can't give me a straight up answer about anything. It's always some cryptic thing he has to say.

"Aw, come on, Jesse.…" I said, hoping he would tell me then.

"Susannah, Susannah…" he chided. "Even you can wait patiently for something so unimportant."

"Even me? Oh, that's too funny, Jesse," I said, fake-punching him on the arm. "But what you think," I said more seriously, "is not unimportant. Not to me, anyway."

"_Querida," _he said. "I don't want to explain right now. Not in front of everyone who is here. Some things are better discussed in private."

I kicked some sand, thinking. In private? Jesse wanted to speak to me in private? I hoped it meant what I thought it meant.

"Well, fine. We'll go somewhere and talk then," I said.

"No," he said chuckling. "We'll talk later. Right now, you need to see your friends." He pointed to CeeCee and Gina, who looked really pissed at me for having left them alone with Allison, who had abandoned Paul for to go and talk to them.

"Okay. Bye," I said, kissing him on the cheek.

He looked embarrassed. "Susannah…" He said. Jesse doesn't go for PDA. He says PDA should stand for Private Demonstration of Affection, not Public Display of Affection.

I ran over to CeeCee, Gina, and Allison. Allison was busy giving an account of how she and Paul had met. CeeCee and Gina looked really bored.

"Sorry, guys," I said, interrupting Allison's speech. CeeCee and Gina looked relieved. Allison, who noticed that Paul was back from the snack bar, went over to cling on him.

"I just wanted to see how Jesse was doing while you guys were talking. I didn't know The Kling On was going to come back," I said, sitting down on the beach blanket.

"It's not a problem unless you jip us out of an explanation, Simon," Gina said. "Then it will be a big problem." She rolled her eyes. "I don't get what Paul Slater sees in her. I mean, he's hot, and he seems kind of smart…and she's not. Don't smart guys usually go for smart girls? Unless, of course, they're the totally arrogant type who date stupid girls in order to show off their smarts."

"Um, Paul _is_ the arrogant type. You just don't know him well enough yet," I said. "Trust me," I added quickly.

"Yeah, Gina, he is kind of haughty," CeeCee said. "He cursed at Kelly Prescott- you remember her, right? She was the girl who had the issues with the Chinese tanks- during our junior year. He told her to shove candy bars up her ass…Not that it offended me, or anything. I'm just saying that he could treat women better." CeeCee smiled. "I often wanted to tell off Kelly and Debbie. I just couldn't get the best opportunity to do it in front of everyone."

I thought about how he'd treated me before the night we went back to 1850, and kept my mouth closed. I didn't want to explain everything just yet.

"Not to mention, he was way rude to Suze, too. He practically blackmailed her," CeeCee added.

"Oh, really? Someone actually found something to blackmail Simon with?" Gina turned toward me. "Describe."

"Now is really not the best time, Gina," I said. "He's standing right over there." I pointed at him. "See?"

"So? We can leave and talk. I'm getting bored anyway," Gina said.

"I'm afraid Simon does owe us a huge explanation, and this sweater is getting rather warm," CeeCee said.

I sighed. I just wouldn't win, now would I? I was stuck having to explain it all to them, whether I wanted to or not.

"Okay," I said. "We'll go to my house and talk. I'll explain while when we get there. Just let me go say good-bye to Jesse."

I walked across the sand to Jesse, who was lying on a towel reading a book. I was really quiet as I walked across, hoping to sneak up on him.

I watched him as he read. He didn't seem to notice me, which, for once, I was glad he didn't- I wanted to watch.

He looked so perfect, sitting there, reading. He was tan from being in the sun all day, and his hair was curly and slightly windblown, which gave it a messy, but still sexy, look. He was also shirtless, so I could see his chest, which was still extremely buff, and the thin band of dark hair that led from his navel down to the edge of his swimming trunks…and possibly below.

Had I been observing any other guy that way, I would have passed these observations off because of sun-drunkenness, but this was Jesse, so I was one-hundred percent correct in my observations, if I may say so myself.

So, I just stood there, looking at him, and thinking about him, and how our kids might turn out- if we ever get married and have kids, that is- when he noticed I was there.

"You were thinking about me were you?" he said. It totally unnerves me when he says that.

I mentioned that before, right? The fact that he always knows I'm thinking about him, I mean. Well, it's really weird. You see, whenever I'm thinking about him, he knows. I'd say it's love, but I don't know when _he's_ thinking about _me_. I think it's another side effect of his previous condition, you know, the one where he was a ghost. I mean, that's why he's a mediator. So why wouldn't he know when I'm thinking about him? I mean, he always came to me when I was thinking about calling him when he was a ghost…maybe that's why he can tell if I'm thinking about him.

"Maybe," I said, sitting down next to him. I turned around for a brief moment and saw CeeCee throw her hands up in exasperation.

He put his book away. It was nearly sunset. He wouldn't be able to read it for much longer anyway. "Susannah, I- " he started, but he never finished. Something was really wrong with him. He could usually say what he needed to say, but not this time. Whatever it was, it must have been something big.

Like, for instance, proposing. Oh, he never even hinted of that, but the whole being quiet and staring off into space on his part reeked of pre-proposal jitters. Or at least according to the editors of _Cosmo. _

"Jesse…is something wrong?" I asked. The sun was sinking- a big orange fireball- into the ocean. The deep red rays of light lit up Jesse's face, bringing out his tan and highlighting his hair. He looked far away, as if he were not really at the beach talking to me.

"No, _querida," _he said, glancing at me meaningfully. "Right now, everything is perfect, but…" He sighed. "…there is something I want to say, but I don't know exactly how to say it."

"I'm sorry, Jesse," I said. I glanced over my shoulder to see a pissed off-looking Gina staring at me. "Listen, CeeCee and Gina want me to explain everything- about the mediator thing, I mean- to them. And I mean it when I say they want to know everything. Would it be okay with you if I explained, you know…" I was suddenly very uncomfortable. This wasn't really a subject I liked to discuss with Jesse. I doubted I'd enjoy discussing it with Gina, David, and CeeCee.

"Of course it would be all right with me. They need to know, Susannah," Jesse said. Even though I hadn't finished that sentence, he knew what I'd meant.

"Okay." I gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, longing to do more, since sunset is a perfectly romantic time, in my opinion. "Bye, then. Enjoy your book."

He grabbed me and kissed me, on the lips. "Good-bye, Susannah," he said as I got up-- giddily, but with regret that I couldn't kiss him again-- to leave.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

**Chapter Fourteen**

CeeCee, Gina, and I drove to my house, where they and I were to discuss the wonderful life of a mediator, and blah, blah, blah.

Really, what was there to talk about? I mean, it's no picnic. Unless, that is, you got a boyfriend because of it. Jesse was enough to make up for all the crap I'd been through.

So, when we got to my house, we ate dinner with the rest of the clan (since skipping a meal is completely inexcusable for Andy), and we even offered to clean up afterward, even though it was Brad's week to do it. After we finished cleaning up, we found David, who was in his room making a model of the solar system while he was allowing the glue his DNA model (made of Tinker Toys) to dry. He was always doing stuff like that, even though he fully had a girlfriend.

"David," I said, looking into his doorway.

He looked up at me. "Oh, Suze. What is it? Do you need help with another measurement?" he asked.

"No, not exactly." I swallowed. Hard. It was now or never, I told myself. "You know about Jesse, and the ghost…well, I'm going to explain it all -everything- to you, Gina, and CeeCee."

He got up. "I wouldn't normally…intrude…but I would really like to know," he said.

He followed me to my room, where Gina and CeeCee were waiting for me. I closed the door behind me as I walked in.

"Okay," I said, sitting down on my bed and staring at the lace canopy. "Here is the long-overdue explanation."

"About damned time," Gina said, but she was laughing when she said it. She and CeeCee were sitting on the daybed, and David was sitting on the window seat.

I took a deep breath. I was scared. What if they thought I was a psycho? Then I remembered that they would probably understand. I mean, they had pretty much figured it out for themselves, with the exception of Gina who'd overheard my conversation with Madame Zara. Maybe they wouldn't think I was psycho. Maybe. "I am a mediator. I talk to the dead. I help the unhappy dead move on to wherever it is we're supposed to go after we die." It was really weird saying that to people who were alive. Usually, I would have recited that little speech to people who were, um, dead. "I saw my first ghost when I was two. I didn't know I was a mediator until I was six, when my dad died. Any questions so far?"

They all shook their heads. I went back to staring at the lace canopy on my bed. "I was probably the only mediator in all of the five boroughs. I mean, I saw enough ghosts there to have mediated half the population of Brooklyn, or at least that's what it felt like. Because of the dead people- who were, by the way, never happy- I was routinely late for school, missing from school, beat up, nearly killed, and always in trouble. I've even been brought home by New York's finest. Because I was always so weird- well, I couldn't be normal because of the mediator thing, you know- my mom dragged me to therapy, and I'd have to sit and lie to the therapist about all of my weird behavior, trying to convince the therapists that I wasn't crazy. I couldn't exactly tell them the truth because who would believe a girl who says she can see and talk to the dead?

"So then Mom met Andy, and they got married, and my mom was convinced that it would be a completely new start for us, and we'd be happy living in California. I didn't believe her. Especially not after I got here and there was a ghost in my room."

"It was Jesse, wasn't it?" CeeCee said.

I nodded my head. "Yes."

"Okay, enough about that. Skip to the part where he became alive," Gina said, becoming impatient.

"Whatever," I said. "But first I have to tell you about Paul."

"Paul? What does he have to do with it?" David asked, confused. This was not good. David was never confused.

"Paul," I said, "is also a mediator. He and I met at the Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort when I used to work there. He was in cahoots with the ghost of the woman who'd ordered Jesse's death and the guy -Diego- who actually killed Jesse." Dammit, I thought. I'd forgotten to explain how Jesse had died. But really, who could blame me? Sometimes, it was a lot -too much, even- for me to process, and it was _my_ own life! "Jesse actually died," I said by way of explaining the situation, "because he didn't want to marry his cousin" -_ew_- "Maria de Silva. He was staying in this bedroom here in this house when he was on his way to break up with her, and then Maria's boyfriend Diego killed him because Maria didn't want Jesse to embarrass her by dumping her. Maria was also angry with me because I hadn't told Andy not to dig in the backyard to put in the hot tub. That was the body Brad found, by the way. It was Jesse's body, I mean. Anyway, Maria was mad at me, so she had Jack -Paul's younger brother- exorcise Jesse. Then I had Father Dom exorcise me so I could get Jesse back. Then Jesse kissed me. But Paul was still trying to keep me away from Jesse. So he moved to Carmel the next school year."

"What a jerk," Gina commented. "No wonder he has such a clingy girlfriend. He probably prides himself on the fact that a girl actually wants him."

"So that was….that was why you didn't like him at the beginning of the school year!" CeeCee said quietly.

Doc remained silent the whole time. I don't know if he was trying to process it all or if he just had nothing to say.

I explained to them all that Paul had told me about Dr. Slaski and shifters in Ancient Egypt. I told them -painstakingly- about the moves Paul had put on me in his bedroom, and about the fight between Jesse and Paul on the night of Brad's party. They listened, asking questions whenever they needed to, and I explained the best I could.

Then came what I cared to discuss the least: How I'd nearly lost Jesse again because of Paul Slater.

"Paul had never told me about the time-traveling thing. Not until he'd planned to use it. He was going to go back to -to- the night Jesse died and save him from Diego. He -in a way- made a mistake by telling me because deciding whether or not to allow him to do it was the most difficult decision I'd ever made. I mean, I wanted Jesse to have a full and happy life like he'd deserved, but I also wanted to keep him with me because I loved him. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Eventually, I decided that I would stop Paul. I mean, Jesse didn't want to leave -he had actually accused Paul of lying to him- but Paul was going to go anyway because…because Paul wanted me." I took a deep breath. I was shaking all over. I hated even thinking about that night, but then, there I was telling the only three non-mediator people who'd ever understand it. "So I went to stop Paul. But he tied me up in the barn. You know, there used to be a barn in the backyard, but it burned down, and that was my fault. You see, Paul had me tied up in the hay loft, and I made noises, and Jesse found me. He untied me…and when I saw him, so warm, so alive, I decided that I could never allow him to die, no matter how much I loved him. So I started telling him all about Diego's plan to kill him. He didn't believe me, at least not right away, but I convinced him. Then Diego came; they fought, and Jesse killed him." _Way to go, Suze,_ I thought. _Tell your best friends and your stepbrother that your boyfriend is capable of homicide. It was justifiable, but it was still, you know, _murder. "Then the barn caught on fire because I knocked over a lantern in the hay loft, and Paul got out, all by himself. But Jesse -who didn't even know me because he technically hadn't met me yet- stayed behind to save me. And I got scared, so I shifted home and accidentally brought Jesse's body with me. Then, Paul and I took his body to the hospital…and…and…Jesse came to say good-bye to me, but his soul got sucked up in his body…and…and…he was alive."

David handed me a tissue from my nightstand. "Here," he said.

I hadn't even realized I was crying. I guess I'd been too busy releasing pent-up thoughts and feelings that I hadn't noticed the tears that pricked me behind my eyes.

"You know," Gina said quietly, "you could turn this all into a movie."

"Lifetime Channel," CeeCee said.

I smiled. "Yeah. Lifetime Channel."

I hadn't wanted to explain it all to them, but all in all, it was just a brick in the wall, or however that song went.

David excused himself quietly -well why would he want to stick around when there was so much feminine emotion in the air? Then CeeCee, Gina, and I sat around exploring Gina's new CD collection. It turned out, that even though her last boyfriend was a pothead, he liked some pretty good music. Among the Cds in her collection were bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, The Offspring, and Zwan. I kind of liked some of the Smashing Pumpkins, Zwan, and Nirvana stuff (at least not the really heavy or offensive stuff). The Offspring was good, too, but some of their lyrics, CeeCee pointed out, were prejudiced against women.

"Do you think Jesse would like any of this?" Gina asked. She had been telling CeeCee and me how she now saw that Jesse had every right to be a little boring (at least to her) because he was not exactly twenty-two years-old: he was actually a hundred and seventy years-old. Of course a hundred and seventy year-old guy would be a little boring to a twenty-year-old girl.

"I don't know. I think he might go for some of the softer Pumpkins stuff. He'd almost definitely like Zwan. Maybe he'd like some of the softer Nirvana stuff," I said.

"I think he would," CeeCee said. "He doesn't have much of a problem with movies," she said, referring to how I'd once told her how sick I was of watching _The Godfather. _

"Now…onto more important matters," Gina said. "Have you gotten into bed with him yet? I mean, would a guy his age know how to…how to please a woman in the twenty-first century? I mean, carnal acts probably weren't so recreational then. I mean, women were probably taught to lie back and think of baby-making and making her husband happy."

"Gina!" I said, turning red.

"Ha! I knew it!" Gina said.

"Actually, that would be a 'no," I said. "I've tried, I really have. But no. He says no."

"But why?" CeeCee said.

"I don't know. He used to say nothing below the neck until the honeymoon, now it's just nothing below the waist. I'm working on it!" I said.

"Well here," Gina said. "Take some of these Cds over to his place later on this week and see how he likes it."

"Okay," I said. "You know, Gina, we need to find you a boyfriend. Not Brad or Jake -a real guy."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I have a date with Jake tomorrow night," she said.

"So Cee, how are things with you and Adam?" I asked.

"Dreamy still. He's a perfect gentleman, and funny as ever. The other day, he told me he'd marry me, but he said he'd have to kill his first wife first for the insurance money in order to pay for our wedding," CeeCee said. "I told him that it wasn't such a good idea. Besides, he'd have to pay for the honeymoon, not the wedding."

I cracked up. "Typical Adam," I said.

"Yeah. Well, I have to go home so I can go to bed and be halfway alive at work tomorrow," CeeCee said. CeeCee was doing an internship for her schoolwork that summer. She was going to be a journalist.

I glanced at the clock. It was almost ten-thirty. "Yeah, you'd better go. Gina and I have to work tomorrow anyway."

I mentioned that, right? I mentioned that Gina and I were working together at the Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort, right? I was working there so I'd have money for stuff like extra clothes and make up, and Gina was working there so she could earn a little extra cash too and so she wouldn't be bored while I was at work.

So CeeCee left and Gina and I went to bed.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

**Chapter Fifteen**

"So," Gina said from the chair on which she was lounging. "Have you two done it yet?"

We were down at the hotel pool with our charges- Lori and Jeff Sanders for me, and Lily Brown for Gina. So far this summer, none of my charges have turned out to be mini-mediators with hot older brothers, thank God.

But I still had to wear that crappy uniform…

"Gina," I said. "We can't talk about it right now. We're at work."

"I take that as a no," Gina said. "Really, I can understand it. I think it's kind of romantic, actually, waiting that long." She threw me a sidelong glance. "I bet he's still a virgin."

"_Gina," _I said in a warning tone.

"I get the point, Simon. But think about it: he's waited for a hundred and seventy-two years, and he's not pressuring you about sex. Face it, girl, he's the only guy in the world who can say he truly doesn't want that from his girlfriend…or at least not as much as other guys do," she said. "You're really very lucky. You know that, don't you?"

"Yeah. Oh, wait a minute," I said. Lori and Jeff were calling me, asking me when I was going to get into the pool with them. "In a minute," I told them.

"Those kids really like you, you know. You're good with kids."

Gina was lucky she didn't have to get into the pool because Lily had no interest in swimming, she just wanted to get a tan. Jeez. She was _nine, _and she was all ready tan-obsessed. It's appalling. When I was nine, I was _not _worried about getting a tan. I was worried about getting Skittles and running away from angry ghosts.

"Whatever. I don't like it though. I mean, they either talk back to you or spit up in your hair," I said pulling off those awful shorts so I could jump into the pool. I was grateful for pulling off the shorts, even if I had to wear a one-piece swim suit underneath. Really. Pleated khaki shorts should be banned by law.

"Sure, sure. Just wait until you have a little girl carrying around your Prada handbag and strutting around in your Jimmy Choos, saying, 'Look at me, Mommy! I'm famous!' while she's autographing walls with a Sharpie Marker."

"Ha-ha," I said, climbing into the pool.

"Suze! We have to play Marco Polo!" Jeff said. Marco Polo was his favorite pool game. I'd been pretty much assigned to baby-sit Jeff and his sister all during their one-month stay at Pebble Beach. At least I'd be making good tips- his parents had to be loaded if they could afford a one-month stay _here _at Pebble Beach Hotel and Golf Resort.

"Okay, but on one condition: I don't have to be the one looking for you guys- you have to look for me this time," I said.

"Aw, but Suze, we can never find you!" Lori said.

"Then that makes it more fun for you, since two people will be looking for one," I said.

I heard Gina laugh. "Don't let her lie to you, kids. She's going to get out as soon as you close your eyes!"

"I will not!" I said.

"Yeah she will," Gina said to Lori and Jeff.

I splashed Gina. She was, understandably, not very happy about this. Gina actually got up off of her lawn chair and jumped into the pool.

"You're on!" she said. She was not at all happy with me, but she was being nice about it. So instead of playing Marco Polo, we had a splashing contest, much to the discontentment of the rich lawyers' wives who were lounging around on the lawn chairs around the pool.

Needless to say, Lori and Jeff enjoyed this much much more than a game of Marco Polo, so when we were getting ready to go back up to their suite, they begged me to let them stay and have one more splash war. I had to decline, saying that their parents would arrive soon and want them to be ready for dinner.

* * *

"Can't you just wait until you squeeze out a couple of your own?" Gina asked as we were driving back to my house for her to get ready to go out with Jake, and for me to get ready to go to the Coffee Clutch with Adam, CeeCee, and Jesse. 

"Please," I said sarcastically, "I'd never be able to wear a two-piece suit again."

"Give it up, Suze. You know you want to have kids." Gina smirked. "I watched you. You deny it, but you like them."

"Maybe," I said. "Which baby doll dress should I wear with these jeans, Gina? The black one or the pink one? Or maybe the cream-colored one with the flowers embroidered on it?"

"What, are you Courtney Love now?"

"Gina, decision please."

"With jeans? The cream one," she said thoughtfully. "And take that little Kate Spade bag with you," she said, pointing to a small tan purse in my closet.

"No, not that one. I think this one," I said, holding up a Fossil bag that had been made of something that resembled hay or grass.

"Yeah, I didn't see that one," she said. Gina was all ready dressed for her date with Jake. She was wearing silvery-colored pants and a black see-through shirt with a tank top underneath.

"I have to know something, though. Like how far have you two gone, you know, physically?" Gina said.

"Gee, that's kind of personal business, don't you think?" I said.

"I just wanted to know. I mean, what if he's feeling you up, and he says, 'My dear, they are finer than the ripest of melons' like one of those men in thosecheap trashyromance novels set during his time period? What would you do? You know if a guy said that to me, I'd relieve him of his manliness so fast…"

I laughed. Oh, please. Jesse wouldn't do that so I didn't even have to think of the answer to that one. "He knows better, honestly!"

"I knew it!" Gina said. "I knew you two had at least gotten to _there_."

I'm sorry to say I threw my bag at her.

"What the hell was that for?" Gina asked.

"You know why," I said. "Come on, let's go. You've kept Jake waiting for fifteen minutes, and I said I'd be at the Coffee Clutch in ten minutes, and it's been fifteen."

"Oh, here, don't forget to take these," she said handing me her CD case. "Don't forget to show him the CDs to see what he'll think."

"You sure?"

"What am I going to do with them while I'm with Jake?" she said.

"I don't know. Mood music?" I said, even though the thought of Jake and Gina needing mood music made me feel kind of queasy.

"Simon," she said, "You have a lot to learn. Mood music is not cool. Most of it is way cheesy," she said wrinkling her pierced nose. "See you later," she said, turning to leave.

Gina and Jake went in Jake's car to go and see a movie, but my mom stopped me at the door.

"Suze," she said, "I know you're all ready late, but I have something important to tell you."

"What is it?" I asked. Is it that she got me an appointment to get contraceptive pills? If so, it was not necessary, much to my chagrin.

"Well, Arianna, the intern at the station told me that she thought it was absolutely ridiculous that you drive all the way from Carmel to San Francisco, so she told me about an apartment she used to have there, and she said you could have it if you wanted. And Andy and I will pay for it, since your grades are so good. All you have to do is say yes and move your stuff down there. How would you like that?"

"Um…" was all I could think of to say.

"If you're worried about Jesse, don't be. You know he loves you. It's written all over your faces. Go have fun, Susie! Let me know about the apartment when you get home, okay?" she said.

"Okay," I said. "Bye, Mom."

On the way to the Coffee Clutch, I thought about moving to San Francisco and how I'd tell Jesse if I made up my mind to go. How would he react? I mean, it would make much more sense for me to move, but I'd miss him so much if I left. If I moved to San Francisco, I wouldn't be a ten minute drive away from him- I'd be a three hour drive away from him.

Who, I ask you, needs that? I do not want to be that far away from Jesse.

But then again, the prospect of not driving for six hours a day was mightily tempting.

I made up my mind. I was going. I mean, why drive for six hours a day to school? Didn't I have better things to do? I could always drive to Carmel on the weekends to see my family and Jesse, right?

Now I just needed a way to tell him without getting too upset about it in front of him. I mean, I didn't want to be so far away from him, not after I'd nearly lost him twice.

Oh, come on, I knew he wasn't going to screw around on me while I was gone, and I most certainly wasn't going to date some other guy behind Jesse's back, but I wanted to be able to see him a lot, which I wouldn't be able to do if I lived three hours away, now would I?

When I finally got to the Coffee Clutch, I found CeeCee, Adam, and Jesse waiting patiently for me.

"Hello, Susannah," Jesse said softly as I sat down next to him. I slipped my fingers into his.

"We were beginning to wonder what was taking you so long. Jesse here was going to get up and start talking to that girl behind the counter…you know you can't trust us men when you're not around…" Adam said. He took a sip of his drink. "We might do things we'll regret later."

"Maybe _you_ would, Adam," I said trying not to show how stressed out I was about telling Jesse I was going to move away, "But I don't think I have to worry about Jesse."

"We _were_ beginning to wonder," CeeCee said.

"Yeah, I just got sidetracked," I said coolly.

"By what? Flying pigs?" Adam said. "Or were you thinking dirty thoughts about me at the traffic light?"

"Flying pigs," I said.

Adam pretended to look hurt. "But Suze…I thought you were going to marry me when you divorced your first husband. You don't think about me, all alone and cold in my bed?"

"We're still fighting a brutal battle for the pool table and the bar stools," I said sarcastically. I dropped my voice, "That's also why you have a girlfriend."

"Why were you so late?" CeeCee said as Jesse and Adam became engrossed in a conversation about a book they'd both read about the end of the world and who would be allowed into the new society and who would be left to die, andblah-blah-blah.

"My mom had to stop and talk to me about something," I said. I noticed a slight catch in my voice. I hoped that CeeCee wouldn't notice, but she did.

"Oh, what?" She seemed really concerned.

"I'll tell you later," I said. The truth was, I just wanted to tell Jesse first. I mean, he deserved to know first. Besides, I didn't want to spoil the evening any more than I all ready had.

I guess the whole moving away thing was really bothering me badly because CeeCee kept trying to pry it out of me, and when Jesse noticed, he asked me what was wrong. I kept telling them that I would tell them later, but it didn't work. Jesse whispered in my ear for me to come over to his place later that evening to discuss whatever it was that was bothering me, since I didn't want to talk about it in front of CeeCee and Adam.

Oh great. I couldn't wait. I mean, how fun could it be to tell Jesse that I was moving away and would only be able to see him on weekends, and that all telephone calls would be long-distance and rare, since they were expensive and we were both in college?


	16. Chapter Sixteen

**Chapter Sixteen**

When I got to Jesse's place, I could tell that there was not going to be our usual cuddling and making out during the movie, or even a movie. Jesse wanted to talk--and seriously. He wanted to know what was wrong with me. Pronto.

Which was fine. I mean, I'd have to tell him sometime. That I might be moving, I mean. He'd notice I was gone and want to know where I was.

I sat down on his couch, where he'd motioned for me to sit. I looked around the room. Jesse had really made his apartment a nice place. When he'd first moved in, it had been empty and sparse, but he'd put some furniture in. He hadn't decorated or anything because guys--even if they were born a hundred and fifty-two years ago--don't decorate all that much.

"Susannah, what is wrong?" he asked. "You have looked as if something has been troubling you all evening."

I had to stall for time so I could figure out how exactly to tell him. It had been two hours since Mom had sprung the prospect of me moving to San Francisco, and I still didn't know how to tell him I that I would most likely be leaving Carmel soon. "Nothing," I said.

"No, not nothing," Jesse said. "Something has been bothering you all evening, and I really would like to know what's bothering you. I don't like to see you troubled, _querida." _His voice was silky smooth. He was using that voice on purpose to make me give in.

"Okay," I said, "I'll tell you, but only if you'll tell me what you were thinking about yesterday at the beach because you know you weren't looking so well yourself."

"Susannah."

"Jesse."

"Susannah, why won't you tell me what's bothering you?" he said compassionately, but I could tell he was getting a little frustrated with me.

"Because," I said, "I want to know what was bothering _you _yesterday."

"Fine," he said running a shaky hand through his hair and sitting down on the couch next to me. "I will tell you, but only because you won't let me know what's bothering you until I do tell you."

He took my hands in his. "I've been thinking about a lot of things lately, but mostly I've thought of our future together." He paused. This was good. He was thinking of our future. Together. Together, as in me and him together. _Us._

That could only mean one thing, or at least to me: the M-word. Marriage.

_Yes, yes, yes,_ I said silently. If only Gina and CeeCee could see this moment! They would have eaten it up with a spoon.

"What do you want for our future, _querida?"_ he asked.

I thought for a minute. "To be with you," I said. It was a simple answer, but it was apparently the one he needed to hear because he leaned over and kissed me. I kissed him back. We've been dating each other for something like two and a half years, and it always feels the same when we kiss, it's like the only thing in the world at that moment is us our love. It sucks all the normal energy out of me, and it replaces my old energy with a new kind of energy, an energy that makes me feel very excited and kind of squishy. It's the best feeling in the world.

As we were kissing, Spike climbed up onto the back of the couch and let out a plaintive cry, apparently jealous of me because Jesse was paying me more attention than Jesse was giving him, which was exactly nil at that moment.

"You want us to be together in the future?" he asked, ignoring the cat. He wasn't breathing very evenly. I think his breath was more ragged than my own, which was very ragged.

"Of course, Jesse," I said, resting my forehead on his. "What makes you think I wouldn't?"

"Nothing," he said. "I was just making sure because I was going to ask you if you wanted to marry me, when we're finished with school and everything."

"Yes, of course," I said. I couldn't believe it, he had basically proposed!

"Then will you marry me? We will need to wait, of course, until we are finished with school…" he pulled something from his jacket pocket. I had wondered why he had kept it on. I knew I was certainly feeling very hot after all our kissing, so he had to be burning up. I saw that he had pulled a ring from his pocket.

"Yes," I said.

He kissed me again.

After a while he asked what it was that had been bothering me. I told him that I might have been moving to San Francisco, and that I'd been worried about not being able to see him, but then he told me not to worry about it. He said we'd be able to see each other on weekends and during the summer. As he pointed out, I only had three years left of school. I mean, three years is not a terribly long time to wait. I guess. Jesse and I would just have the world's longest engagement, but we were going to get married!

I smiled. I was lying on top of him on his couch, listening to his heartbeat and feeling his chest rise and fall as he breathed. I was quite happy to be there, and I didn't want to leave. Ever. "I shouldn't have been worried, I know, but I was," I said.

"No." He kissed the top of my head and stroked my hair. "I love you. I always will," he said.

"You too," I said sleepily. It was nearly twelve midnight, so I guess I had a right to be sleepy, since I'd been up since six thirty on account of having to be at work at eight. Thankfully the next day was Sunday, which meant neither Jesse nor I had to work…but it also meant a gourmet breakfast thanks to Andy, which meant I'd still have to be up early.

Jesse continued to stoke my hair in a soothing manner. I was really enjoying the tingly sensation that ran down my spine as his hand smoothed my hair. My own hands were resting on his chest, feeling his heartbeat and his chest move up and down as he breathed in and out.

That's the last thing I remember before waking up later to hear a conversation between Jesse and my mother.

I had apparently fallen asleep in Jesse's arms, like the heroines do in those books my mother used to read at night before she went to sleep, those books that sometimes make up hilarious euphemisms for sex--like what Gina had said about the ripe-melon thing.

But it's really romantic when it happens in real life.

The falling asleep in your true love's arms thing, not the man of your dreams telling you that your breasts are like the finest of ripe melons, I mean.

After I'd fallen asleep, Jesse decided that he at least needed to call my mother and tell her where I was, if not drive me home. He had picked me up--how I don't know, but I know he did manage to lift me up and carry me to his bed because I woke up as he was doing so--and laid me down on his bed so I could sleep. He would not have, I knew, allowed me to stay over at his place if I had not already been asleep.

But whatever. I was happy to feel his strong arms around me as he carried me. I wished that I could have stayed there forever in his arms, but he put me down and then went back into his living room to call my mother. There was an extension in his room, but I guess he didn't want to wake me up.

Carefully, I picked up the extension. I knew I had to be careful because you can hear the sound--the slightest little sound--through the phone when you're spying on someone through an extension. You can hear a little click if they pick up the phone after you do, or if they hang up before you do.

"Hello, Mrs. Ackerman. This is Jesse. I'm sorry to call so late, but Susannah and I lost track of time…" Jesse said.

"That's okay, Jesse," I heard my mom say sleepily. "Andy and I are watching a movie, so you didn't wake us up."

"It's just that Susannah fell asleep, and I didn't want to wake her. Would it be all right with you if she stayed here tonight? Or if you'd rather I wake her up…"

_No, _I prayed. _Don't come in here! I want to know what else you have to say…_

"No, Jesse, it's all right if she stays…" I heard Mom say something to Andy, who said something in reply. "Oh, Andy wants to know if you asked her…"

"Yes," Jesse said breathlessly.

"And she said…"

"Yes," Jesse said. I could tell he was trying not to show how happy he was.

"Oh! She said yes! Andy, she said yes!" Mom said excitedly.

In the back ground, I heard Andy say, "Can I talk to him, Helen?" Mom apparently handed Andy the phone because Andy came on the line next. "Hey. Good news, Jesse. Glad to hear it. I was beginning to wonder when you'd ask…I mean, you asked me like six months ago," Andy said, but he was laughing. "You're good to her. I'm glad to be the father of a girl for once."

I heard Jesse chuckle in reply. "I tried to think of how to ask her. It took me a long time to think about how to go about it," he said.

I sat there, bubbling over with joy! I mean, Jesse had asked permission! I shouldn't have been surprised, this was Jesse after all. But what he'd been thinking about, why he'd been so distant--it'd been because he was trying to think of how to ask me. It hadn't been because anything was wrong--everything had been good; better than good even: it had been GREAT!

Mom came back on the line. "I'm so glad you came into Suze's life, Jesse. She used to be so unhappy, but now, it's like she's almost a completely different girl. So happy. I'm glad for you two, I really am. I promise I won't say anything to her about it…"

"Okay," Jesse said. It was weird, hearing him say that, but he was catching on to the lingo pretty well.

"Did she tell you about her moving to San Francisco?"

"Yes, she did. She was worried about her and me not being able to see each other…" Jesse said.

"She has nothing to worry about," Mom said. "Well, good-night, Jesse. Kiss Susie good-night for me."

She hung up and I hung up the extension quickly. I rolled over and smiled to myself. Later Jesse got in bed as well, and I fell asleep again, smiling and in his arms.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

**Chapter Seventeen**

I woke up the next morning, briefly disoriented. I looked around, not remembering where I was, like most people do when they sleep at someone else's house, then I looked around and smiled--I was at Jesse's place! I rolled over, expecting to see Jesse there beside me, but he was gone. Which totally spoiled the romantic mood, if you ask me. But I wasn't disappointed for long. That's because I smelled breakfast--waffles and bacon. Jesse was in his kitchen, making breakfast.

Presumably for me. Oh my God. Breakfast in bed! How _sweet_ of him!

I got up and went to comb my hair. I also rinsed my mouth out to get rid of morning breath. Why _hadn't_ I made that Morning After kit I'd seen in an issue of _Cosmo? _You know, the kit you keep in your purse--a travel-sized toothbrush, a miniature tube of toothpaste, conditioner, face powder--for when you spend the night at your boyfriend's place. You put the toothbrush and toothpaste in there so you don't have morning breath (the toothpaste is also rumored to get rid of zits quickly in an emergency when you can't get to your Clinique face wash or whatever), and you put the conditioner and face powder in there because most guys don't use conditioner or facial powder. I'd also add waterproof mascara to my kit. And a hairbrush. My hair was a mess! And all I'd done was sleep! How was I going to keep my hair from looking like a bird's nest when I was married to Jesse? I mean, he'd see my hair every day! He could potentially see me looking like a complete wreck, and then walk down the street and see some other girl who'd had a chance to get out her blow dryer. He would see me every day, even on days when the marine fog won the battle for my hair day.

I crawled back in bed. I wouldn't want to spoil the, um, mood. I mean, it was really sweet, what he was doing. Why should I ruin it by getting up?

Just as I was thinking that, Jesse came in holding two plates of steaming waffles and bacon, with a bottle of maple syrup and two glasses of orange juice all on a tray, not mixed with his backwash because he knows better than to drink from the carton because bacteria from his mouth would build up in the carton and make him sick if he drank it, or so he'd tried to explain to Brad one morning when he saw Brad drinking O.J. from the carton. Needless to say, Brad didn't listen. Possibly because he didn't have a clue what Jesse was telling him, thanks to Brad's superior intellect and all.

"Good morning, Susannah," he said.

"Good morning," I said sleepily. I wasn't sleepy. I was wide awake. I should get an Oscar, I really should. I am a really good actress when I put my mind to it.

"I hope you are hungry," he said, handing me a plate and a glass and sitting down next to me.

"Of course," I said. Oh, my God, what kind of reply was _that, _anyway? I totally should have said something seductive and sexy, but all I was capable of saying was _of course_. It's a real wonder he loves me at all, what with my superior intelligence and all. I mean, that remark made me slightly more intelligent than Brad, who had barely managed to graduate in June.

But then again, was it really my fault that I was still a little under experienced in the romance department? I mean, I'd only been on dates with two guys before dating Jesse. I mean, Tad and Paul. What kind of Dating 101 was that?

"Good." At least he didn't seem to notice my oh-so-witty rejoinder.

We sat there eating in silence. Well, what was there really to say? Finally--after about five minutes--Jesse broke the silence by saying, "Did you sleep well last night?"

Of course I had! He'd been right there next to me, keeping me warm with all his body heat, and I could smell him, and I swear I think he leaned over more than once and kissed me on various places on my head. Ask me if I slept well…

"Yes. You?" Jeez. Such a scintillating reply…I have such wonderful communication skills. Not.

"Fine," he said, grinning. "Susannah, why did you listen in on my telephone conversation with your mother and stepfather?"

Dammit. Dammit. _Dammit. _

Now how was I going to get out of _that_ one?

"Um…" I chewed on my lip, thinking of an answer to give him. "Because I wanted to," I said, smiling. I hoped my cuteness would make him not be mad at me. "But how did you know?"

And he busted out laughing. I'm serious. Like me asking him how he knew was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Right. "Oh, Susannah." He cupped my face in his hand and kept laughing. God, he gets the biggest kick out of the tiniest little thing, but when I try to make a sarcastic remark that should be funny, he doesn't get it.

"Susannah," he said, trying not to laugh harder. He was really red in the face now. "I could hear you breathing, and I kept trying not to say anything that would indicate that I knew…"

"You KNEW?" I said. He'd known I was awake? And he hadn't said anything to me? He hadn't kissed me so that I could kiss him back?

"Yes," he said, starting to laugh again. "I'm sorry. I just found it rather amusing is all."

"Amusing?" I asked dubiously. I certainly didn't think it was funny.

"Yes, Susannah, I thought it was funny," he said, trying not to laugh even harder.

"You have a really messed up sense of humor," I said. This was not funny.

"Oh, Susannah…I love you. You know that, don't you?" he said quietly.

"Yes, I know," I said happily, about as happily as I had felt the night before. Oh yes, I knew it all right…

"I just think that some of the things you do--like spying on my telephone conversations--are terribly funny, that's all," he said.

"Okay," I said. "I suppose I won't be mad at you--" But I didn't get to finish that sentence because he leaned over and kissed me. I could seriously get used to that. I really could. You know, for two years, I could barely get him to kiss me, but now, it's like that's all he wants to do.

Suits me fine. I mean, he's totally polite about it. He doesn't go around jamming his tongue down my throat like he owns a season pass to it or something. He just kisses me lightly whenever the time is right, then if he thinks I'll be okay with it, he deepens the kissing a little. He loves me. It's the best feeling ever to be loved by him. It really is, let me tell you.

"Oh, wait, I forgot," I said a little while later after we were both breathless from all that kissing. I went into his living room and got my bag, where I had all of Gina's CDs. I went back to his room. "Gina wanted me to show you these CDs. She thinks you might like some of them." I fished around pulled out the Zwan CD. "Especially this one, but she seems to think you'll like the rest. She said you can borrow them all for as long as you'd like." I dumped the CDs in all their cases onto his bed.

He looked thoughtfully at the stack of CDs I had pulled from my bag and handed to him. He looked at the covers of each one--a Nirvana CD, a Smashing Pumpkins CD, the Zwan CD, and a few others and said, "Tell her I said thank you." He looked at the alarm clock beside his bed. It was nearly two in the afternoon. "You probably need to go home," he said. "Your mother will probably want to see you."

"Okay, I will. Bye," I said, turning to leave.

"Goodbye, Susannah," he said quietly.

"Oh, wait a minute. One more thing," I said. I swear he rolled his eyes at me. Men, I swear. "When do you want to tell them we're getting married?"

He shrugged. "They all ready know. We should wait, I guess. Whatever you want," he said.

"Okay. Bye then," I said, even though I didn't want to leave.

I drove all the way to my house with a stupid smile on my face. I knew how my mom must have felt when she met Andy. Disgustingly happy. But I didn't mind so much because I was the one who was disgustingly happy.

I knew that my mom and Andy were probably busy with some new project Andy was working on in the backyard, and I was glad. I didn't want to share my news just yet. I wanted to wait until Jesse was around so we could tell them together. I stuck my left hand--so they wouldn't see the ring; I had to pretend they didn't know. How embarrassing would it be to tell them I'd been spying on their conversation with Jesse?--in my pocket and continued up the stairs.

I found Gina for me up in my room. "What took you so long? I thought you were going out with coffee. This isn't Manhattan, you know, where coffeehouses stay open twenty four hours a day," she said boredly, flipping a page of the newest issue of _Cosmo._

"Jesse and I went to his place last night," I said.

"And…?" she asked.

"Promise not to tell?" I said.

"Yes, on my honor," she said, holding up three fingers of her right hand, the scouting symbol.

I pulled my hand from my pocket.

"Oh my God," she squealed, grabbing my hand so hard I thought she was going to rip my arm from its socket. "Really? He asked?"

"Yes," I said, nodding vigorously.

"Oh my God!" she squealed again. "So did you…?"

"No," I said, turning--I'm sure--bright red. She was asking if Jesse and I Did It. Well, what was she to think? I'd been gone all night and half of the day. "But I almost can't believe it, Gina. I mean, we're getting married. I was so worried because he hadn't said anything, and then last night, he asked. Oh my God."

"So when are you telling your mom?"

"I guess whenever Jesse wants to," I said. "He wants to wait until we're both finished with school and have jobs, so it'll be a while before we actually tie the knot."

"Wow, it's great, Suze!" she gushed.

"But you can't tell. No one. Not until I tell my mom and Andy," I said.

"Don't worry, I won't. So, how did he like the CDs? Or did you even have a chance to show him?"

"Oh, I did, but we didn't get to listen to them. He made me come home. He's borrowing them," I said. "Hope that's okay."

"Girl, you know it is. He is _fine. _Oh, and he's your fiancé," she said.

"Gina. Don't say it so loud. I'm not ready to tell my mom yet! Even if she does know."

"Oh yeah. Sorry," she said. "Wait a minute…your mom all ready knows? Describe."

"He asked for their permission," I said, meaning that Jesse had asked Mom and Andy if he could marry me. "He called them last night to ask them if it was okay if I spent the night because I fell asleep. I woke up when he put me in his bed, and I listened in on their conversation. It was great." I proceeded to describe the rest of the conversation to her, and then I told her about the waffles and bacon breakfast in bed, and she squealed in delight.

"Oh, if only all guys were like that!" she said.

"Then you'd be arrested for polygamy," I said. This remark caused Gina to hit me with a pillow, and we proceeded to have a pillow fight.

Then my mom, who had apparently come in the house to get Andy a glass of water, heard the commotion and came upstairs to see what was going on. I quickly stuck my left hand in my pocket. But not quickly enough.

"I all ready know, Susie! And it's wonderful, isn't it? My baby girl is getting married someday," she said. She was way happy about it. I think she was happier than _I _was.

Gina, sensing that this was a mother/daughter moment, tactfully left the room.

"Oh, Susie. He's so good for you. You used to be so unhappy…then he came along and took you to that dance, and it's like your world completely changed…You've never had that many boyfriends, but I'm glad you found him, Susie," she said, hugging me and smoothing some of my hair. "You know, I would think that nineteen is a little young to be married, but Jesse explained to me that he thought it was best that you wait until you both are finished with college and everything, and that's why Andy and I agreed to let him ask you. It was so sweet of him to ask, you know. I doubt many guys now would even bother…Anyway, Andy didn't even think twice about saying yes to Jesse. Even Andy saw how good Jesse is for you…" She hugged me tighter. "Oh, Susie!"

"Mom," I said, struggling to breathe. "You're squishing me."

My mom pulled away from me and smacked me in the face with a pillow.

"Oh, and Suze? You got mail yesterday," she said, handing me a check from Le Sport Sac. A check for--get this!--fifteen thousand dollars--all the revenue the sales from my bags had brought in so far in the last month. They were apparently very popular. "You might want to put some away. I know you're all ready saving your baby sitting money, but I also know you want to see Jesse as much as you can. Getting a job full-time during the school year would take away from your time with him, no doubt," she said. "Congratulations, Susie!"

She turned to leave, leaving me alone to think about how my karma was _so_ kicking ass right now.

A little while later, Gina came in to tell me that she was going to stay in California for the rest of her college career, since she could easily transfer schools and all. When I told her about the check, she insisted that we celebrate--with CeeCee, of course--both my engagement--even if it was a little early to announce--and the popularity of my bags with a shopping spree at the mall. I called Cee to see if she could come too. She said she could, and that she'd be more than glad to.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

**--About two and a half years later. This is five years after _Twilight_!--**

**Chapter Eighteen**

"Oh my _God, _Simon," CeeCee said holding up a handbag and turning to me. "When did this happen?"

Gina and I turned away from a rack of Kate Spade and Coach bags in a store at the mall in Carmel to look at the bag CeeCee was holding up. I gasped in shock. She was holding up one of my newest designs--a little clutch, designed with the upcoming prom season in mind. I hadn't expected to see it there, among all the famous labels. I _was_ still in college, after all. I was going to start my last semester in January, but still. I had only designed a few bags, a skirt, and a sweater. That's not exactly anything that would make a fashion student famous, you know.

"Oh, that," I said. "Last month."

"You know, this is your fifth bag in two and a half years, along with that cute black denim miniskirt and that chartreuse scoop neck cashmere sweater," CeeCee said. "You only have one more semester to go, and then you're finished with school. Don't you think it's time you let me do an article for the paper? I'll call it _Local Design Student Has It In The Bag. _I'll even include a picture of you, along with a picture of some of your stuff. What do you say? Any word yet on getting your own line of clothes and stuff? Your own label, I mean."

Gina raised her eyebrows, one of which she'd had pierced recently. She had been living in San Francisco with me for the past two and a half years, visiting Carmel in the summer and on the weekends, but she still wasn't used to CeeCee's sudden bursts of inspiration. CeeCee had been working for the _Carmel Pine Cone _for the last year, and she would do _anything _for an excuse to write about something other than drowned tourists and wind chime thefts.

"I don't know," I said. "I though Macy's was supposed to pick up one of my jackets I designed, but no word from them yet."

"But you wouldn't mind me doing an article would you?" CeeCee asked hopefully.

"I guess not," I said. I knew it would make CeeCee happy if I allowed her to do an article for me.

Gina looked down at her watch. "Yo, Simon, we need to meet your mom at that bridal shop in half an hour," she said.

"Oh yeah, and I still have to get Jesse's Christmas presents," I said.

"What are you buying him?" Gina asked. "Because if you are buying him CDs again, I really do think you should get him something else. You bought him CDs last Christmas, _and_ for his birthday. Maybe you should buy him something else…"

"Like what?" I asked.

"I don't know. Another book? He likes to read those intellectual books doesn't he? Those books that only he and David get," she said, wrinkling her nose. "I don't see how you stand it."

"Yeah," I said, choosing to ignore her last comment. "But you don't understand. He loves all sorts of music. I mean, he likes classical music, and Smashing Pumpkins, Zwan, A Perfect Circle--stuff I'd never listen to if he didn't listen to it all the time because I wouldn't even know it existed--and he loves Nirvana, strangely enough. And he doesn't mind my Madonna CDs, and he listens to old rock music, and lots of Mozart, and he could never have enough CDs," I explained. "I'd hate to buy him another book. Not without buying him a CD or something to go with it. Besides, he's been too busy to read."

It was true. Jesse had loved the CDs Gina had lent him. He loved them so much, in fact, he tried to find out about all the bands and their music. He also tried to find more music to listen to, resulting in a massive CD collection. He had also, over the last two and a half years, acquired a large collection of books, ranging from Stephen King novels to nonfiction to philosophy to books about the end of the world. It was also true that Jesse had been very busy with his new job--working as an emergency room doctor in the hospital in downtown Carmel, incidentally the same hospital Paul and I had driven him to that night that seemed to be so long ago. Jesse and I had also been very busy planning our wedding, which was to take place on June 11, a Wednesday. As we'd found on a Website for wedding traditions:

_Married in the month of roses--June, _

_Life will be one long honeymoon. _

And then there was this:

_Monday for wealth,  
Tuesday for health,  
Wednesday the best day of all.  
Thursday for losses,  
Friday for crosses,  
And Saturday no luck at all. _

We hoped we'd made the right decision, because once the wedding date is set, it's not supposed to be changed for anything--another bad-luck thing to do. Changing the date of the wedding, I mean.

So I went to the CD store and bought Jesse a CD--one I hoped he didn't all ready have--to go with a book I had also bought him, a book about the Vietnam War, which David had discussed at length after his graduation ceremony. Lame, I know, but what else was I supposed to buy him?

We all--Gina, CeeCee, and me--piled in my car and drove over to the bridal shop my mom was waiting at in downtown Carmel. We had to buy a lot of dresses for my wedding--and for CeeCee's wedding, so CeeCee and I had been doing a lot of our bridal shopping together. Gina was a bridesmaid in both mine and CeeCee's wedding. CeeCee was a bridesmaid in my wedding, and I was the maid--or rather, I would be the matron of honor in her wedding because Jesse and I were getting married sooner; CeeCee had joked that a matron of honor is luckier than a maid of honor, since the matron is supposed to be happily married (she said that Jesse and I didn't need luck, but she and Adam might)--of honor in her wedding. So we had to buy a total of six dresses for ourselves, and my mom needed one for my wedding. Seven dresses. The clerks at the counter would have thought we were crazy if we were buying them right then--our plan was to put the dresses on layaway since they were so expensive.

Yes, you read all that right. CeeCee and Adam were going to tie the knot a month or two after Jesse and I got married.

Mom met us at the store, and then she went to go and pick out her own dress, leaving us girls to shop for ourselves. I was glad I had all that money saved up from my purses. This wedding was going to make a huge dent in my bank account.

But it was totally worth it.

"What kind of male strippers do you want at your bachelorette party?" CeeCee asked, fingering the skirt of a green bridesmaid's dress.

"None," I said. I doubted Jesse would go for that kind of thing. Besides, could any man on the face of the planet look better naked? I think not. Okay, so maybe I haven't actually seen Jesse full-Monty, but a girl can daydream, right?

"Ooh! I know," Gina said to CeeCee conspiratorially, "How about a guy dressed as a police officer?"

"Why?" CeeCee asked, not getting it.

"Free handcuffs, dude," Gina said with a grin.

"Well, in that case, we need to get Suze a man dressed in a prisoner's costume. He comes with handcuffs and prison shackles!" CeeCee said, giggling. "I want a…oh I don't know! Knowing my luck, Adam would show up, dressed as Frankenstein, and I'd have to explain to him why I was having a bachelorette party…after I pummeled him for being a male stripper."

"Now that's kinky," Gina said.

"No, no," I said joining in on the joke. "We need a doctor."

"A doctor? Why? You're going to have one on your own after the wedding…" CeeCee said.

"'An apple a day keeps the doctor away,' but if the doctor's cute, screw the fruit!" I said, thinking about Jesse.

"No, screw the doctor!" Gina said. At least she was honest.

"Gina!" I couldn't believe she'd said that. Not in a store. The clerks at the counter looked at us, as if to say, _We hope you're buying something, if not, never come here again. Brides-to-be are supposed to be _civilized, _not making jokes about strippers._

"Girls," Mom called from a few racks away, "Are we being naughty?" But she meant it to be funny.

We burst out laughing.

"Naughty? Us, no, Mom," I said. "We were just having a friendly discussion about men…"

"And body parts," Gina said.

"Shut up," CeeCee hissed. The other customers--not just the flunkies behind the counter--were starting to look at us as if we were insane. Which given that two of us were brides-to-be, we probably were.

Insane, I mean.

I went back to looking at dresses. I wanted a white silk dress that didn't show too much, if you know what I mean. I'd accidentally worn a two-piece bathing suit to the beach once with Jesse, and he'd been all like, "_Nombre de Dios, _Susannah, where did your clothes go? Are you sure that is--I don't know--legal?"

Then I had to explain to him that it was a bathing suit--not my underwear--and that since it didn't show any private areas, it was legal. Which was, needless to say, totally embarrassing.

But remind me not to leave any Victoria's Secret catalogues lying around when he comes over to my place. I'd hate to scar him for life, and he undoubtedly would be if he got a good luck at the underwear section of that catalogue.

As I looked at all the dresses--there were a good many to choose from--I didn't see any I really liked enough to wear. The dress for my wedding to Jesse had to be just like our relationship--special, unique, even.

"How about this dress, Susie?" Mom asked, holding up a light green dress. "Or did you want to wear white?"

"White," I said. Then I recited,

"_Married in white,  
You have chosen all right. _

_Married in green,  
Ashamed to be seen. _

_Married in red,  
You will wish yourself dead. _

_Married in blue,  
You will always be true. _

_Married in yellow,  
Ashamed of your fellow. _

_Married in black,  
You will wish yourself back. _

_Married in pink,  
Of you he'll think."_

Gina looked at me with her eyebrows raised. "Girl, I told you you needed to just go to the magistrate's office or to a notary public, get the marriage license, sign it, and be done with it if you're just going to stay up all night reading all those stupid superstitions on the Internet," she said.

"But I wanted Father Dominic to do the ceremony," I said.

"Why? You're not even a Christian, much less a Catholic," CeeCee pointed out. She and Adam were also having a wedding ceremony, but theirs was going to be a simple wedding, with only two bridesmaids, a best-man, and a few guests. It was for my mom's--and Jesse's--sake that I was going through with the whole huge wedding ordeal. Just the thought of walking to the altar made me cringe. Then there were all of those superstitions, which weren't helping any. The wedding--along with the mall, Christmas, and finals--was starting to give me hives. I'm not kidding. I totally had to chill out and not worry to make the hives go away because disfiguring skin rashes really suck.

I know because I still want to throw up every time I think about poison oak.

"Jesse _is_ Catholic," I said. "He wants Father D to do the ceremony, and I don't mind. I like Father Dom."

"What about this one, Suze?" Gina said, holding up a pretty satin dress.

"Satin is unlucky. I want silk," I said.

"You're still using my veil, aren't you, Suze?" Mom asked, referring to the veil she'd worn to her wedding with Andy.

"Yeah. The older the luckier," I said.

"Don't you think you should try it on then?" Mom asked.

"No. I'm not supposed to wear it before the wedding day," I said. "Or at least only at the most necessary of fittings, and never at the same time as the dress."

"Okay, well, you're borrowing the veil, so now you just need something old and something blue," CeeCee said sarcastically. "Everything else is supposed to be new."

I looked at her severely. "Don't start--" I said.

"Relax, Simon. Jeez. I was just kidding," she said.

"What color are us bridesmaids wearing again?" Gina asked.

"Blue," I said.

"Then I have the perfect dress, I think. Here, look at this," Gina said. She was holding up a very beautiful blue dress.

"Perfect. I almost wish I were a bridesmaid," I said. "I still can't find a dress I like."

"Why don't you design your own?" CeeCee asked.

"I could, but it's unlucky," I said.

"'Tis true," Gina said. "She would be damning herself to a life of poverty, according to the superstitious women of the Victorian era."

They burst out laughing, having a joke at my expense.

"Oh, Suze, really. It's okay. You have six months left," CeeCee said. "To plan, I mean. You don't really believe in all those superstitions now do you?"

"Not really," I said. "I just don't want to take any chances."

"What are you so worried about?" Gina said. "It's not like you're not sure that Jesse is The One. The One you will spend your eternity with, according to Madame Zara, so don't start with that whole 'but he could leave me for someone better' crap again. It's so patently untrue and you know it."

But it was too late. I was going to flip out again if I stayed in that store any longer. "You know what? I don't see anything I want here, so I'm just going to go wait in the car…" I said. I lowered my voice so that only Gina could hear. "Don't mention Madame Zara--or anything else about _that_--here. Not in front of Mom."

"Oh no you don't. You're not going anywhere," CeeCee said. "If I'm stuck in here, you are, too, Simon. Oops. I meant de Silva."

"Don't," I said. "It's unlucky to call a woman--"

"By her betrothed's surname until it is officially her name as well," Gina said, rolling her eyes. I'd told her that a number of times when she'd jokingly called me Mrs. De Silva.

"Oh, Susie! What about this dress? I think you'd be lovely in it," my mom said, holding up a strapless Natalia Misslin dress with flowers stitched into a few places on the skirt. It was perfect, except I thought it needed a fuller skirt.

"It's beautiful," CeeCee gasped.

"But it needs a fuller skirt," I said.

"Well you could do that yourself," Gina said. "It wouldn't count as making your own dress."

"Okay," I said. "That's the dress."

So then someone came over to help me try on the dress, and I looked at myself in the mirror. I wondered what Jesse would have thought, even if he wasn't supposed to see me in the dress before the wedding. I mean, I looked pretty good in that dress, if I may say so myself.

"It's perfect, Susie," Mom said. "Just perfect for you, just like Jesse."

And with that, I started to cry, only from joy instead of sadness.

CeeCee and Gina said nothing, only nodded in agreement.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

December third was my birthday--and it was also the day after we went shopping for bridal and bridesmaid dresses in downtown Carmel. This birthday was my twenty-second birthday, which wasn't actually very special, really…

…Except that I was going to go to my mom's house for a birthday party she insisted on throwing, and that meant Jesse would be there, since my mom would more likely die than not invite him to some sort of family function. And if Jesse were there, that meant I could handle a terrible family rendition of "Happy Birthday" and Brad's scoffing at the fact that I was older than him by a matter of a few weeks.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing Brad ever scoffed at where I was concerned. I was successful and in college, he was going to the community college and more or less bargaining with his professors to get him a passing grade. I shared an apartment in San Francisco with Gina (CeeCee lived with Adam), and Brad still lived at home with Mom and Andy.

Even _Jake _had moved out of Mom and Andy's place, allowing them to convert his room into yet another cheerfully colored guest room, like what they'd done to my old room a few years ago when I'd moved out to share my apartment in San Francisco with Gina. The only other kid Mom and Andy had left living in the house was David, who was going to leave for college soon in the coming August. I couldn't really believe it. About David, I mean. Short, skinny, dorky David had transformed--more or less magically--into a taller, slightly muscular--but still kind of skinny--and somewhat cute Dave, or at least that's what his girlfriend--of five years, I might add; he was the only one of my stepbrothers who wasn't a commitment phobe--Shannon called him.

Brad was also--I think--jealous because I had a boyfriend, while he was stuck lamely trying to seduce any girl he saw. Don't get me wrong, girls---all with about the same amount of functioning brain cells as Debbie Mancuso--still considered him a hottie when they saw him surfing at the beach or whatever--how that happened is completely beyond me--but they quickly saw how immature he was and used their better judgment and ditched him, definitive proof that their brain cells weren't _completely_ dead, as his may have been.

Poor Brad. He was just such a dufus. But that was his own fault, really.

But Jesse would be at the birthday party. Or at least the one at my mom's house. Did I even mention CeeCee and Gina's plans for my birthday?

They were planning a girls-only party, whatever that meant. Oh, come on, I'm not stupid. I know it meant that Jesse, Adam, and the guy Gina had just started dating--she'd given up on rekindling her old flames with Jake a long time ago--would not be allowed to be there. I just didn't know _why._

I should have known, however, the reasoning behind that, but when Gina had sprung the prospect of a party-- "Just you, me, and CeeCee," she'd said--I'd been so happy to know that I was going to see Jesse, that I wouldn't have cared if she'd said she was going to the _National Enquirer _or _Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not _about my abilities as a mediator to talk to the dead. I mean, lately, that's what the idea of seeing Jesse had done to me--made me oblivious to anything else because we were both so busy, leaving very little time for us to see each other.

Which may have been a good thing because lately I'd been feeling very nervous about the wedding, which was only about six months away, not very long, if you think about it. Plus, I had exams to study for, and stuff to do for my job--working as a freelance clothing designer. Recently I'd been a nervous wreck, and the thought of seeing Jesse kind of made it worse, whenever I actually took the time to think, _Oh, wait, I'm marrying him in six months,_ because then I'd think about things that happen after people get married, and then I'd get scared, and that's when I'd flip out about it.

Which is what happened the day of my birthday party, the day after we'd gone shopping for my dress.

"Oh, God, Gina, what am I going to do?" I whined into my cup of herbal tea, the kind I usually drank whenever I wound up in a shopping mall. Lately I'd been drinking a lot of herbal tea for my nerves. Our kitchen cabinets had a lot of varieties of herbal tea, of many different brands and flavors. It was getting ridiculous, but it was much healthier than other habits people pick up when they're nervous, like nail-biting and smoking.

Gina and I were sitting in the kitchen area, eating a little bit of brunch because we'd both slept in, on account of it being Sunday and both of us were heathens who refused to attend church on any sort of regular basis. Our apartment was fairly nice. It had two bedrooms, one for me and one for Gina, as well as a bathroom, a kitchen, and a living room. The rent wasn't terribly bad, either--I'd even asked Mom and Andy to let Gina and me pay it since I'd started bringing in a little money. They had hastily agreed, since they'd wanted to install a pool in the backyard at the time.

Gina looked at me with her eyebrow raised, the pierced one. She'd been hearing a lot of this lately. I was surprised she hadn't tried to sic a psychologist on me. "Well, today, you're going to go to your mom's house for a family birthday party, because it's your birthday, in case you've forgotten. Then you're going to come back home, and CeeCee and I are throwing you a party. You're going to have fun, and you're not going to worry about _It. _You are the only person I know who shouldn't have to worry. You two are perfect for each other," she said. "Besides, CeeCee and I are going to help you with one of your problems," she said. "You know, the one about him seeing you in the buff."

I sipped some tea. "Yeah, you're right." Then I remembered what else she'd said, about her and CeeCee fixing my _other_ problem. "What are you talking about? Fixing the problem, I mean."

She grinned. "If you want to know, you're going to get dressed"--I was still in my pajamas--"and you're going to go to that party, no matter how embarrassing hearing your family half-heartedly sing 'Happy Birthday' will be, and you're going to see Jesse, you're going to have fun. Then you can find out."

"Jeez, Gina," I said feeling a little bit better. "Don't you think you're a little demanding?"

"Yeah, sure I am. But what would you do without me?"

"One can only imagine," I said.

"Simon, you are such a dink."

* * *

Gina and I walked into the front door. We were late. Almost everyone else had been on time, we'd seen, when we'd pulled up in the driveway. Jake, Brad, CeeCee, Adam, and Jesse--who was never late--were all already there. We were expecting one other guest, but that particular guest said that they might not be able to make it.

"Late to your own birthday party, by thirty minutes," Jake said. He'd become a little bit more talkative--granted he was still always half-asleep every time I saw him--over the past few years. "Are you going to be late for your own damn funeral, too?"

"Hopefully yes," I answered. "Besides, riding in a car with me is not an instrument in rediscovering prayer," I added.

"It's not a swear-fest, either," Gina said. Then she excused herself to the kitchen, where CeeCee was helping my mom put candles on my cake, saying she had a few things to discuss with CeeCee, concerning my other party.

Jesse, sitting across the room from Jake grinned and walked over to where I was. He'd gotten the joke about being late for my own funeral…and the driving thing. He'd once made the mistake of riding in a car with Jake as the driver, and vowed never to do it again. Let's just say that there is no possible way Jake could ever be late for anything unless he fell asleep behind the wheel.

"Hello, Susannah," he said nervously, even though his voice was still smooth. We were both nervous when we were around my family. We couldn't sit together without my mom ogling at us and then going to get her digital camera for "just one more picture."

"Hey," I said. Unlike him, my voice was not exactly smooth. How does he do that, anyway?

In actuality, the party wasn't all that bad. I mean, it wasn't very fun, but it wasn't as bad as I had imagined it would be. There was still the cake with all its twenty-two-candle glory, saturated fat and artificial flavors, as David so nicely pointed out. And then there was the horrible family rendition of "Happy Birthday," complete with Brad's stupid voice cracking and messing up on every other word-on purpose, I'll have you know. Then there were the presents. Mom and Andy gave me a nice sweater and fifty dollars; CeeCee and Gina said they'd give me my presents from them later--not a good sign--and David gave me a book on different types of fabric and how to use each one--a thoughtful gift, really, considering my job and all. I was just about to open my last present--the one from Jesse--when someone else showed up. Our last guest had arrived.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Susannah Simon," a familiar voice went, "and her family, this time, along with all the other people who got here before I did." Everyone laughed at him.

It was Paul. Paul Slater had shown up at my birthday party, holding a gift bag with tissue paper popping out of the top. About five years ago, I would have screamed at the top of my lungs for him to get the hell out of my house, but a lot had changed in those five years--Paul and Jesse had become friends, or at least as friendly as they could be, given their shared past. Paul had made it only too clear when he actually began to date other girls that he'd given up on me, and Jesse was now safe from any fights, at least where Paul was concerned. There was still a little bit of iciness between them at times, though.

"So it is," I said.

"Sorry I'm late," he said.

There was an awkward silence. I'd never been able to explain to my mom how Paul and I could be friends now, when I'd once sworn that I'd hated him.

And only now, I didn't exactly hate him. Once he'd finally gotten over his obsession with me, he actually turned out to be not so bad. I won't lie. He still had moments where anyone nearby wanted to throw stuff in his general direction, but he was improving.

I think my mom just thought it was about the student government thing. Now high school was behind us, so we could easily be friends without the worry about one defeating the other in political mud slinging.

"That's alright," I said. "Better late than never."

He winked at Jesse. Jesse nodded at him. God, this was all so awkward. Why did things between the three of us have to be so awkward in front of other people? I mean, I know we were all mediators, but still.

Eventually, I opened up my presents--a book of some sort from Paul, and a cashmere sweater set from Jesse, along with a note telling me that he heard from a reliable source that I could use some chocolate. I looked in the box, and there was a bag of Hershey's Kisses tucked inside.

I looked up at Jesse. By that point, people had become more interested in other things besides my birthday--thank God--and Jesse whispered, "Meet me upstairs." Then he disappeared.

Gina, who was still in the room looked wide-eyed. "Don't look at me, Simon. I didn't say a word to him," she said.

I followed Jesse up the stairs, wondering what he wanted. I figured that he probably wanted to talk, which he did. He wanted to talk to me about a lot of things, actually.

"How have you been lately, Susannah?" Jesse asked, sitting down on the window seat of my old room. We hadn't seen each other in about two weeks. He looked nervous.

"Same old same," I said. "How about you?"

"I have been busy," he said. "And I'm sorry I haven't been able to spend as much time with you as we'd both like."

"I know. It's alright," I said. He was busy working in the hospital. As much as I would have liked to, I couldn't be terribly selfish and demand that he take time off to spend with me.

"No, it's not," he said. "And you and I both know it, _querida. _I miss you."

Oh my God, is that not the sweetest thing ever? I wanted to drag him over closer to me and kiss him, but I didn't because I knew he wanted to talk.

"I miss you, too. But we're here now," I said. "What do you want to talk about?" I know it sounded tactless, but I didn't want him to feel too nervous about whatever it was that was bothering him. I mean, that's what girlfriends are for, besides making out, you know?

Besides, what if he was telling me he didn't want to marry me after all? I mean, he had asked me over two years ago. That's plenty of time for him to change his mind. And if he didn't want to marry me, he might as well--

"Where do you want to live after we're married?" he asked.

Was that all? It couldn't have been. Why else would he have been so nervous? _But at least he isn't breaking things off with me,_ I thought. Then I scolded myself for even thinking he could ever want to break up with me. He loved me. The very thought of him not wanting to be with me was completely ludicrous. Besides, if he ever did…I have no idea what I'd do--either to him or to myself--but, believe me, it would be pretty, especially considering all we'd been through for each other. If we ever did break up, I would be completely over the edge.

"Your apartment is fine," I said. We obviously couldn't live at my place, what with it being in San Francisco. Plus Gina was there, and that would just be awkward, living as a married couple with any sort of third party around.

"I was thinking of maybe buying a house," Jesse said, "but I wanted to know what kind of house you would want to live in."

"I don't know," I said. "Don't worry about that right now, though."

"All right," he said. Then he was silent, but this time I think it was just because he didn't know what to say. Jeez. Were things going to be this awkward until after we were married? Or would all this awkwardness just continue? God, no wonder so many couples get divorced.

But things hadn't been all that awkward, not until right then when we were talking in my old room at my mom's house. I wondered why. I mean, I know I'd been feeling awkward for some time about post-wedding activities--if you know what I mean--but not right after he'd proposed.

Maybe it was just because the wedding was so close. Just because we were meant to be together forever didn't mean we weren't supposed to be nervous.

I looked around the room, unsure of what to do. They hadn't changed much since I'd left. Most of the same furniture from where I'd lived there was still there, unused. I thought about what to do next. Should I say anything? Should I kiss him?

I still didn't know what to do, so I just kissed him. "Everything will be all right, and you know it."

He smiled, but he still seemed kind of sad.

"Jesse," I said, looking in his eyes. "What's wrong?"

He looked grim, and kind of disappointed. I guess he'd been trying to hide the fact that anything was bothering him, but he answered, "One of my patients died, Susannah."

I knew he felt horrible about it. Why wouldn't he? That completely sucked. "Oh, Jesse," I said putting my arm around his shoulder. "Don't beat yourself up over it. People die. No matter what you do, some people are going to die when you're supposed to make them better. Sometimes there's just nothing more you can do, except let them die," I said.

He sighed. "You're right," he said. "You're right _querida_," he repeated. He looked as if he felt better.

Then he kissed me. And, of course, I kissed back. What else was I going to do? It was the perfect opportunity to make out. We were totally alone, and no one was going to miss us. Adam had gone home. CeeCee and Gina were back at our apartment, getting ready for my party. Paul was busy talking to my mom about how he and I could be friends now that we weren't political opponents. Jake had gone to his place as well. David was off doing whatever things he did in his spare time, and Brad had mentioned something about going surfing. No one would notice we were MIA.

Jesse must not have looked at it the same way I did because a few minutes later, he broke off and said, "Susannah, we are in your parents' house. We cannot do this."

"It never stopped you before," I said. "Besides, now I have you where I want you, and you can't disappear now."

"Susannah--" he was trying to scold me, but he was also grinning. He stopped trying to give me the "not until after the honeymoon" speech and kept kissing me.

Finally, I looked down at my watch. It was five in the afternoon. It would take me about three hours to get back home. If I was going to be able to go to classes the next day, I would have to get home as soon as possible.

"You'd better go home," Jesse said, voicing what I had been thinking.

"Yeah. See you later," I said. I kissed him one last time and said, "I love you."

Then I went to go tell everyone else good-bye, and left. I wondered what exactly Gina and CeeCee had in store for me. It didn't sound like anythingI would get out of unembarrassed.


	20. Chapter Twenty

**Chapter Twenty**

"See, Suze," Gina said, "This girl is completely ugly--just look at her face; she looks like a pit bull--and she's completely naked for all of the men who buy this magazine to ogle at her boobs, okay? See? You're much better looking than that, okay? If she can pose naked for thousands of men to see, why shouldn't you be able to let Jesse see you naked? Besides, by the time you two actually got your clothes off, you'd be so into what you're doing you wouldn't notice you were naked. Otherwise, what are you going to do? Do it through a hole in the sheet?"

I snorted. "No. Look, I don't know what's wrong with me, okay? I've been trying for--how long?--to get him to, you know, but he won't. I'm the one that's so hot and bothered to get busy, yet I don't want him to see me naked."

I looked down at the woman's face. She did look like a pit bull. Worse even. Maybe she looked like a chow. Gina and CeeCee had, thankfully, blacked out the rest of her body with a Sharpie marker. I was very glad that they'd had the decency to do at least _that _much. Five pornographic magazines' worth of naked women might send me over the edge of insanity. I didn't know how Brad--from whom they'd stolen the magazines, and who had a brain capacity of about one cubic millimeter--could have wanted to see so many naked bodies, even in his state of girlfriendless-ness. I mean, gross. Andy wouldn't have been very happy if he ever found those magazines under Brad's mattress, where Gina had found them.

At least I finally had something _good_ to blackmail Brad with.

"See, that's your problem. It's a double standard--you don't mind one bit if he takes his shirt off at the beach, but the very thought of him seeing you like that completely immobilizes you," CeeCee said. "Get over it, Simon. Besides, Gina's right. You'll be so caught up in the moment, you won't even realize you're naked until it's all over with--"

"And you're screaming for more," Gina interrupted.

God, why was I friends with such people who were clearly insane? I mean, why me? Why did I have to be stuck with good friends who obviously thought forcing me to look at porno magazines--thankfully with naked bodies scribbled over--to see how ugly other women were (but still willing to walk around and pose naked for men to ogle at) would cure me of the crippling fear of my fiancé seeing me naked.

"Guys, I really don't think--" I started to tell them I didn't think their efforts were really helping all that much, but I was interrupted by Gina, who'd been looking at that magazine again.

"You know what she looks like? She looks like that stupid cat of Jesse's. You know, Spike," she said. She wrinkled her pierced nose. "Does he even still have that cat?"

"No, Spike ate a bad Chihuahua or something," I said. "He died a few months ago."

"Aw, that's sad. Even if that cat was freaking ugly," she said thoughtfully. "How did Jesse take it?"

I'd never told her Spike had died. Just because we were roommates and best friends didn't mean I told her everything that went on between Jesse and me, although I don't see where telling her that Spike had died would be so bad. "He's still heartbroken. I think he loved that cat about as much as he loves me," I said. "I'm getting him a kitten for Christmas."

"No, you're not. It breaks Dating Rule Number Three," CeeCee said. " 'A girl/guy never gives her/his girlfriend/boyfriend a living object--not even a plant--as a gift unless it is agreed upon first.'"

"Relax, Cee. He _wants_ another cat. He just hasn't found a helpless stray to rescue yet, and he doesn't like the way the animals are caged up at the animal shelter. He thinks it's mean to make them stay in such a small area with only a sheet of newsprint paper to use the bathroom on. That's why I'm going to get him one," I said.

She visibly relaxed. CeeCee doesn't like it when I don't follow The Rules, which included not calling him first (whatever), not paying for anything when Jesse and I go out (Jeez. User much? Who made up those rules anyway?), and not over-doing it with gifts, among many others. "Good," she said.

"Now, if you don't mind," I said, "I'm going to bed."

"No, you're not, Simon. Stay here," Gina said. "I have another surprise for you."

She went into the kitchen, and I could hear her talking on the phone in hushed tones, so that I couldn't make out what she was saying.

"Great," I said, sarcastically to CeeCee. "What is it? A video? You know, I really don't have time for this. I have finals to study for, and class tomorrow, and so do you. Can we please go to bed now?"

"No, you'll love this," CeeCee said.

Somehow I doubted that. Could you really blame me, given the events of the evening? I so would have rather stayed in my old bedroom at Mom's to make out with Jesse some more.

But it seems as if I don't always get what I want.

Hey, I know I shouldn't complain. I mean, I had Jesse, didn't I? That was enough to keep my happy for all eternity.

But the whole let's - make - Suze - look - at - dirty - magazines thing my two best friends were doing that the moment really sucked. I was embarrassed, not only for myself, but for the women in those magazines as well. God, how could they want even one guy to see them naked, let alone thousands?

I guess it's all a matter of confidence, even though I know I'm pretty confident. I mean, I haven't had much practice lately, I know I can totally kick somebody's ass in Prada slides, which is not an easy task. I also know that I'm not exactly a dog. Living in San Francisco has made me very, very aware of that fact, particularly if I walk by a construction site or a truck driver. And I know Jesse loves me.

Plus, I certainly wouldn't mind if he took all _his_ clothes off.

So, yes, I was well aware of the fact that my fear of Jesse seeing me in the buff was completely ludicrous.

But that didn't mean I was going to sit idly while my friends harassed me with pornography.

"Can we _please_ go to bed now?" I said.

I was, not surprisingly, ignored. Gina came into the room, right then, and said, "Behold, our knight in shining armor awaits!"

Then there was a knock on the door leading out into the hallway, and then Adam McTavish walked into the room.

"I heard something mentioned about bed time with three lovely young ladies, and I just couldn't help myself," he said. "Now, I hope you don't mind the problem that I only have one--"

"Adam! You're not here for _that," _CeeCee said, turning a violent shade of red. "That's next week. You're supposed to tell her how you didn't mind seeing me, you know, naked when we slept together the first time."

"Yeah, see Suze has this totally absurd obsession over whether or not she is going to marry Jesse, and here's why--she doesn't want him to see her naked. And if she doesn't want _Jesse_ to see her sans apparel, forget about it, Adam," Gina said, "you don't have a snowball's chance in hell for that."

"Oh," Adam said with mock disappointment. "Well then. Since you have crushed my hopes and dreams, I suppose I will tell you the painful tale. My therapist advises me to talk about it, no matter how much it hurts me to do so." He winked at me. "It wasn't bad, Suze, honestly. I didn't really even pay all that much attention." He lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I was too busy imagining that she was Cindy Crawford." He winked at me. "Just kidding Cee," he added to keep her from throwing something at him. He continued, "You have nothing to worry about, not with Jesse. He's not going to care, just like I didn't care. Besides, you're not a bad looking girl, and if Jesse doesn't see that…" He stopped and looked at CeeCee again. "But I regret to inform you that I'm partial to Cee, so no hope of getting with me, kiddo," he said. "That said, I want to get on with the rest of the show." Then he started unbuttoning his shirt and humming a stripper show tune.

"ADAM!" CeeCee said, clearly embarrassed by his act.

Adam stopped pulling at the buttons on his shirt. "Ma'am, yes, ma'am!"

"Thanks, that's much better," CeeCee said.

"It's nine o clock," Adam said. "I have to get to my next act. I take it you're staying here for the night, Cee?"

"Yes, it's a sleepover, dorkus," she said.

Gina laughed. "Before you go, hot cakes, we have a little present for you," she said.

"What is it? Do I really get bed time?" he said.

"No. You get these." Gina handed the stolen nudie magazines to Adam.

"Wow, that's even better," he joked. "Let's see, a _Penthouse, _a _Playboy_, some other brand, written in Chinese, another _Playboy_. High quality stuff," he said.

CeeCee through a pillow at him in mock anger.

"What? I can look, I just can't touch," he said. Then he bowed and said, "Thank you ladies for allowing me to entertain you. If you ever change your mind about using my services again, you know where to find me. _Adieu!"_

Then he left. When he'd been gone for a couple of minutes, CeeCee said, "He can't really look, either."

And we busted out laughing because we knew something Adam didn't: the bodies were scribbled over with Sharpie markers.

"Maybe you guys are right. Maybe it will be okay. He loves me. He'll understand if I'm too scared to go through with it, you know, the post-wedding activities," I said, feeling relieved. "Thanks," I continued. "You helped me. Now do me a favor and never do that to me again, not unless you want me to hire a stripper for your bachelorette parties."

Neither of them replied. They just threw pillows at me, and the pillow fight was on.

"You bitch!" Gina yelled as CeeCee hit her on the head with a couch cushion.

"Hey, don't use that sort of language, young lady," I said, smacking Gina on the butt with a throw pillow.

"And you're not the boss of me," Gina said, throwing her pillow at me. Mistake. I dodged Gina's pillow, and CeeCee and I double - attacked Gina, me with the throw pillow and CeeCee with the couch cushion.

Eventually, we stopped the pillow fight, out of breath and exhausted, and we decided to watch movies. We stayed up all night, watching movies, completely forgetting that we had classes to attend the next day. Needless to say, we did not make it to our morning classes.

But we'd had fun, and that was something all of us needed.


	21. Chapter TwentyOne

**Chapter Twenty-One**

"Hello, how may I help you?" the lady behind the counter asked in a bored voice. She was reading a historical romance novel. Apparently the animal shelter in San Fran wasn't having much business this holiday season, even if it was a week before Christmas. I guess all of the kids in San Francisco wanted video games for Christmas instead of puppies and kittens.

I had just finished my last exam for the semester, so I went to find a new cat for Jesse—preferably a cat that would actually like me. I could have gone to a pet shop, but I thought it would be nice to rescue a cat from the animal shelter, since Jesse didn't like how the animals were expected to use the restroom (so to speak) on a sheet of newspaper, and since he absolutely hated the fact that they were so caged up in an area he said wasn't much larger than a cardboard box that printer papers came in.

"I want to adopt a cat, a kitten, maybe," I said hesitantly. The lady behind the counter looked as if she didn't particularly care to be working at the animal shelter.

She put down the book and stood up. I could tell she wasn't exactly enthused to be leaving her book—despite the fact that she wasn't very far into the book anyway—but she seemed glad to have someone come in to adopt an animal.

"Right this way," she said, leading me through a doorway and down a hallway.

As soon as I set foot inside the hallway—which was made up of cages, where all the cats lived—approximately a hundred cats started meowing at me in hopes of being adopted.

It took a long time to pick out the cat. They were all so cute and begging to be adopted and taken home to a nice, loving family. I mean, they were all as close to me as they could get, and they were meowing so much. It was just so hard to pick out _a_ cat, especially since I had to pick out a cat to replace Spike, if replacing Spike was even possible.

Besides, it's not like I could just take _any_ cat to Jesse on Christmas Eve—it had to be a special cat, because for Jesse, Spike had been special.

So I was careful. I looked at all of the cats—to the dismay of the receptionist, who was eager to return to the pages of a book in which some lovely young heroine was more than likely going to wind up in the arms of a dashing young hero somewhere around the middle part of the story—and I finally found the perfect cat for Jesse. It was a cute little black kitten with gray stripes and bright blue eyes, and it loved me. I merely patted it on the head and it purred loud enough to embarrass felines all over the planet. I knew instantly that Jesse would just love that cat.

"That one's name is Sammy. She and her brother Kody were brought here last week by a lady who found the poor things in a dumpster outside her apartment," the receptionist said.

"Can we take her out and let me hold her?" I asked.

The receptionist sighed. Maybe she had been further along in the book than she had appeared to be.

I held the little kitten in my arms, and she purred even more loudly than before. I stroked Sammy's furry head, and I kind of thought that she reminded me of a baby, in an odd way. I mean, she was tiny, fragile, very adorable, but I knew she would still require—literally—a ton of attention.

I had, over the past few months, been thinking about babies with an alarming regularity. For the most part, I thought it was because of my strict diet—started because I didn't want to gain any weight over the holidays because I had a very expensive wedding dress to fit into—which demanded that I couldn't have much—if any—chocolate. Since I was so stressed out over exams and the wedding, I felt like eating chocolate twenty-four/seven, but since I couldn't have the chocolate, I occupied my time by daydreaming, mostly about what being married to Jesse would feel like.

And that always resulted in me having to drink a lot of herbal tea with artificial sweetener in it.

I stroked Sammy behind the ears. She let out a little meow, and lots of purring. I made up my mind.

"I want to adopt her," I said finally.

"If you want to adopt her, you'll need to adopt her brother as well," the receptionist said, "It was the lady's request."

I looked inside the cage. There was another cat that looked similar to Sammy inside. He was sleeping.

"I'll take him, too," I said. I thought Jesse and I would be able to handle a couple of kittens. I mean, we had the potential to be parents one day: we would need to practice our parenting skills.

Okay, okay. I needed to practice my parenting skills. I already knew Jesse would have been a good father. Jesse worked with kids practically every day at the hospital. He was always nice and kind to them, even when he had difficulty helping them.

But the only people I'd ever worked with that even came close to being kids would be immature college kids, like when I had been made fun of for my success, before I transferred to the Academy of Art.

Oh, and I'd babysat rich people's whiny kids for a few summers.

But a kitten would be a full-time job, like Jesse's patients were. I'd keep Kody for a while, and Sammy would be Jesse's Christmas present. And since they were brother and sister, we'd have to get together and let them play until we actually got married, meaning that I had another reason to spend time with Jesse—and another excuse for driving two hours to Carmel every once in a while.

- - -

I couldn't wait until Christmas Eve, when Gina was supposed to go to her boyfriend's place for the evening—maybe to meet his parents or something—and that meant Jesse and I would be alone, but that only meant that we would be able to eat dinner and—as much as I dreaded it—discuss the details of our wedding ceremony without Gina being around.

Although Gina just thought that going to her boyfriend Scott's place meant that Jesse and I had some alone time to do something other than exchange gifts and discuss our wedding plans.

But that was something I was sure Jesse wouldn't want to do.

And did I mention that I was cooking? Yes, I was cooking Jesse dinner, even though I was no culinary expert. I tried to cook him dinner, I really did.

For the most part, it was edible. I think.

I mean, I knew I could make Ramen noodles and herbal tea, but the dinner I was going to cook for Jesse would have to be something a little more special. I wasn't, I realized as I taste-tested the roast, a bad cook. I was just inexperienced, just like I was with wedding planning. I guess if the roast was okay, then my wedding would be too.

By the time I had tasted the roast for the last time, and everything else was finished, I looked at the clock on the microwave and realized that it was almost time for Jesse to arrive, and I was still wearing that stupid apron with KISS THE COOK on it that my mother had bought me, thinking it was all cute, even though I thought it was utterly repulsive—the only thing I could find to protect myself from ruining my outfit with mashed potatoes or whatever—and my hair wasn't staying in place, like it should have, for what I paid for that hairspray at the salon—which was not what you'd pay for a can of Rave at the pharmacy.

It was, in fact, about the price of three cans of Rave.

Oh, and I noticed I had stained my outfit with some kind of food particles, in spite of that stupid apron.

_Great, just great,_ I thought. _Jesse's going to be here any minute now, and I look like the food I just cooked. _

But then again, I also knew that Jesse most likely wouldn't care if I were covered in mud. I mean, he'd probably say something about how unsanitary mud is, but not, "Oh, my God, Suze, you're _ugly!"_

Not that Jesse would even say _Oh my God _or _Suze. _And I don't think he'd say I was ugly.

But you know what I mean.

_I still have to look nice for him,_ I thought. _ I mean, he is still at a point where he could see a better girl and dump me. Well, he could do that when we were married, but it would have cost him a lot of money to divorce me. Oh, and then there is the added expense of our wedding, which will, if I am not careful, cost just about as much as my college tuition._

_Oh my God. I just had to think of that. Jesse would never leave me, and I know it. Why would I even think for one minute that he would dump me for some other girl? Hello, this is Jesse we're talking about! Oh God, Gina and CeeCee were so right—I am a complete and total nervous wreck over nothing,_ said another, very calm, rational voice in my head, not much different than that voice I had always avoided telling anyone about. I mean, I am not crazy, but other people don't like to know that there's a little voice in your head that tells you what you know in your heart is right.

Getting my thoughts in order, I glanced at the clock again. I had invited Jesse over for dinner at seven-o-clock, which meant I had roughly ten minutes left before Jesse came over. In that ten minutes, I had to change clothes, fix my hair, and set the table.

Oh, and I had to make sure that Kody was okay because he was meowing very loudly from behind the bathroom door, since I'd shut him in my bathroom so Jesse wouldn't see him, and Kody hated being alone.

I checked on Kody—since it was the quickest and easiest task—and then I changed clothes, blindly reaching in and grabbing a slip dress. A little fancy, sure, but it still looked nice, since it was made of a dark red satin material with a black silk sheath over it, with rosebuds on the sleeves. I thought it looked kind of sexy.

Sexy is always good, I suppose.

Then I tackled my hair, which had been in an up-do that had fallen down as I was cooking dinner. I decided that it would be too difficult to redo it, so I took it down and combed the ringlets into soft curls. Then it didn't look so bad.

I went back into the kitchen and looked at the clock again. I had somehow managed to check on the cat, change clothes, and fix my hair in eight minutes—a record timing no doubt—and I had two minutes left to set the table for my Christmas Eve dinner with Jesse.

I quickly covered the table—which had nail-polish remove stains on it, thanks to Gina's homemade pedicure from when she had broken up with her last "serious" boyfriend—with a wine-red table cloth and placed two plates of food onto it, along with silverware—or the best flatware I could find, really, since having real silverware was impractical for two college students living on a budget—and cloth napkins. Then I found the two long, skinny candles I had bought for the occasion and placed them in some pewter candleholders I had found on sale and lit them. Then, as a final preparation, I turned out the light so that the kitchen was bathed in a romantic candlelight.

Then there was a knock on the door, which meant one thing: Jesse had arrived. Taking a deep breath, I went to answer his knock, trying not to make him wait too long, but long enough for him to anticipate seeing me just a bit more.

I opened the door and nearly dropped dead at the sight of him. He was, to massively understate his appearance, gorgeous. He was wearing gray slacks and a black button-down shirt. Then my eyes moved up to his face, and upon seeing his smile, his secret smile just for me, I completely lost my ability to speak in any intelligible manner.

"Oh, er—um—hi, Jesse," I finally managed to squeak out. It had been more than a few seconds since I had answered the door, but standing there in the hallway with him, those few seconds felt like an eternity.

Jesse, whose ability to speak rarely wavered in my presence, said, "Hello, Susannah. You look lovely this evening" in that silky-smooth voice of his.

Which is just completely and totally unfair. I mean, he always says the right thing at exactly the right time, and in exactly the right tone of voice.

And me? I forget how to speak, _and_ my voice is squeaky. Swell.

"Thank you," I said, my mouth going dry, "You look nice, too."

"These are for you," he said, holding out a bouquet of roses, a dozen, all of them red.

I hadn't even noticed that he'd been holding the flowers.

"They're beautiful," I said, blushing stupidly. God, what was wrong with me? "Thank you."

"They're no more beautiful than you are, _querida_."

After that, my face was burning as if it were on fire.

Which is when you realize that love does indeed do strange things to people. I mean, I probably wouldn't have blushed like that if my mom had said I was beautiful.

Then, when I was no longer completely mortified about the burning of my cheeks, I regained my ability to speak and said, "Thank you," which probably wasn't the best thing I could have said, but given the circumstances, it was the best thing I could come up with.

"I also have your Christmas present," he said, holding out a small box that had been wrapped in shiny red paper, "but you can't have it until after we've eaten dinner because I'm starving." Then he winked at me.

"Well in that case," I said, suddenly feeling very flirty, "you'd better hurry up and get in here." I held the door open and stepped aside.

Jesse had been to my apartment a few times before, but not as often as I had been to his apartment, and I liked to think that maybe it was because I shared my apartment with Gina, and he lived alone…in short, he wanted to be alone with me whenever we were together. With most couples, I was sure that being sure you were alone meant you could, um, get horizontal with no interruption, but in my relationship with Jesse, it meant that no one could ask us questions…questions for which we had no answers.

Like the question of how we'd met.

Or "Where on Earth _is_ Jesse's family? Don't they want to be in town for his special day?"

And, "Why are you two so close to Father Dominic? Sure, he was your high school principal, but not many children choose to remain in contact with their high school principals…."

Yeah, my family—my mother especially—had asked some pretty hard-to-answer questions over the past few years, with the exception of David, who _knows_…

But I try not to think about David—or Gina, or CeeCee—knowing about my mediating abilities any more than I have to. It's just so weird, knowing that he knows.

So, given all the uncomfortable questions that come up whenever anyone who isn't David, Gina, Father Dominic, or CeeCee is around Jesse and me, Jesse and I prefer to be alone together. Which would be great, except that things are getting awkward between us sometimes because we both know that in approximately six months, we will most likely be seeing each naked, and…

Well, you know.

"I hope you like roast beef, mashed potatoes, and mixed greens," I said nervously because it had just occurred to me: what if Jesse hated my cooking? What would I do?

But I didn't have to worry for too long because Jesse must have been hungry. He ate less than Brad probably would have eaten—and certainly not as grotesquely as Brad would have eaten it—but it was still more food than I would have eaten.

And he said it was really good. He also said it reminded him of the foods his mom used to cook, so I took that as a good sign…and before I knew it, I was sitting there, across from him in the candlelight, watching him eat and thinking about how good he looked and wondering what our children would look like…

"Susannah." Jesse's voice snapped me out of my reverie. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking," I said.

"About…?"

I blushed, although he probably couldn't have seen in the dim light from the candles, and tried to think of something to say. Finally I just blurted out, "What do you think our kids will look like?"

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I don't know," He said quietly. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

Kody let out a particularly loud yowl from the bathroom, which meant he was very unhappy about being left alone.

"I think it's time for presents," I said, even though it gave away what I'd got Jesse for Christmas. Then I got up and went through my bedroom to my bathroom and scooped up the kitten. I'd wanted to tie a ribbon around his collar, but he'd fussed, so I left it alone.

I walked back into the kitchen, but Jesse wasn't there, so I walked into the living room, where Jesse, who would always be nothing less than a gentleman, was standing up and waiting for me to come into the room.

"Merry Christmas. His name is Kody," I said, holding Kody out so Jesse could take him. "I'm sorry if you don't want him, I just thought you'd want another cat…"

Jesse scratched Kody behind the ears, which I knew Kody really liked. Kody purred very loudly for a kitten, almost as loudly as Spike used to purr. "No," Jesse said, grinning, "I like him, Susannah."

I watched him play with Kody for a bit. Watching him love that cat reminded me of what a good father Jesse would make. After Kody fell asleep, Jesse kissed me on the cheek and said, "I think it's time for your Christmas present."

He pulled out the little red box that was covered in shiny red paper. "For you," he said simply, like he was holding out a box of candy.

But it was much more than candy: it was a locket on a small golden chain, which Jesse explained was like one that his mother wore.

"Open it," he said.

I did, and inside there were two small pictures—one of Jesse and one of me.

"Jesse, it's beautiful. Thank you," I said.

"I just wish I could have given you the one my mother wore," he said.

"Jesse," I said softly, taking his hand, wanting to say so many things I didn't know how to say.

But he knew what I wanted to say, and that was the important part—and all that really mattered.

* * *

**I'm sorry that I have not updated this fanfic for something like two years. I know, that bites. I hate it when people on write something good, then never come back to finish it. **

**I promise I will finish this someday. I just don't want to rush the ending just to get it over with. I've made that mistake before. Please be patient with me.**

** Thank you all very much for reading, being patient, and sending kind reviews. **

**Much love to you all,**

**BeeBee  
**


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